Max Lucado Daily: YOUR BEST WEAPON AGAINST SATAN
Satan has no recourse to your personal testimony. So your best weapon against his attacks is a good memory!
Don’t forget a single one of God’s blessings. He forgives your sins—every one. He heals your diseases—every one. He redeems you from hell—and saves your life. He crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown. He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence. Create a trophy room in your heart, place a memory on the shelf. Before you face a challenge, take a quick tour of God’s accomplishments. Look at all the paychecks he’s provided, all the blessings he’s given, all the prayers he’s answered.
Imitate the shepherd boy David. Before he fought Goliath, the giant, he remembered how God had helped him kill a lion and a bear. Face your future by recalling God’s victories!
From God is With You Every Day
1 Chronicles 21
David Counts the Fighting Men
Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.”
3 But Joab replied, “May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord’s subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?”
4 The king’s word, however, overruled Joab; so Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem. 5 Joab reported the number of the fighting men to David: In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who could handle a sword, including four hundred and seventy thousand in Judah.
6 But Joab did not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering, because the king’s command was repulsive to him. 7 This command was also evil in the sight of God; so he punished Israel.
8 Then David said to God, “I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.”
9 The Lord said to Gad, David’s seer, 10 “Go and tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.’”
11 So Gad went to David and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Take your choice: 12 three years of famine, three months of being swept away[c] before your enemies, with their swords overtaking you, or three days of the sword of the Lord—days of plague in the land, with the angel of the Lord ravaging every part of Israel.’ Now then, decide how I should answer the one who sent me.”
13 David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”
14 So the Lord sent a plague on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell dead. 15 And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah[d] the Jebusite.
16 David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.
17 David said to God, “Was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted? I, the shepherd,[e] have sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Lord my God, let your hand fall on me and my family, but do not let this plague remain on your people.”
David Builds an Altar
18 Then the angel of the Lord ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 19 So David went up in obedience to the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the Lord.
20 While Araunah was threshing wheat, he turned and saw the angel; his four sons who were with him hid themselves. 21 Then David approached, and when Araunah looked and saw him, he left the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground.
22 David said to him, “Let me have the site of your threshing floor so I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped. Sell it to me at the full price.”
23 Araunah said to David, “Take it! Let my lord the king do whatever pleases him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I will give all this.”
24 But King David replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”
25 So David paid Araunah six hundred shekels[f] of gold for the site. 26 David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He called on the Lord, and the Lord answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.
27 Then the Lord spoke to the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath. 28 At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, he offered sacrifices there. 29 The tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were at that time on the high place at Gibeon. 30 But David could not go before it to inquire of God, because he was afraid of the sword of the angel of the Lord.
Footnotes:
1 Chronicles 21:12 Hebrew; Septuagint and Vulgate (see also 2 Samuel 24:13) of fleeing
1 Chronicles 21:15 Hebrew Ornan, a variant of Araunah; also in verses 18-28
1 Chronicles 21:17 Probable reading of the original Hebrew text (see 2 Samuel 24:17 and note); Masoretic Text does not have the shepherd.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, June 20, 2016
Read: Psalm 68:7–10,19–20
O God, when you led your people out from Egypt,
when you marched through the dry wasteland, Interlude
8 the earth trembled, and the heavens poured down rain
before you, the God of Sinai,
before God, the God of Israel.
9 You sent abundant rain, O God,
to refresh the weary land.
10 There your people finally settled,
and with a bountiful harvest, O God,
you provided for your needy people.
Psalm 68:19-20New Living Translation (NLT)
19 Praise the Lord; praise God our savior!
For each day he carries us in his arms. Interlude
20 Our God is a God who saves!
The Sovereign Lord rescues us from death.
INSIGHT:
Psalm 68 is written from the historical context of the Hebrew worshipers. The psalmist declares the awesome power of God by calling Him the “One of Sinai” and the “God of Israel” (v. 8). By doing this he reminds the Hebrews of God’s faithfulness. Who is this God who goes out before the people? (v. 7). He is the God of Israel who spoke to Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron saying, “Let my people go” (Ex. 5:1), and He is the One of Sinai who gave them the Ten Commandments (Ex. 19–20). The psalmist reminds Israel that the God who heard their cries in Egypt still hears, and the One who provided in the desert still provides.
Hoo-ah!
By David Roper
Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Selah. Psalm 68:19 nkjv
The US Army's expression "hoo-ah" is a guttural response barked when troops voice approval. Its original meaning is lost to history, but some say it is derived from an old acronym HUA—Heard, Understood, and Acknowledged. I first heard the word in basic training.
Many years later it found its way into my vocabulary again when I began to meet on Wednesday mornings with a group of men to study the Scriptures. One morning one of the men—a former member of the 82nd Airborne Division—was reading one of the psalms and came to the notation selah that occurs throughout the psalms. Instead of reading “selah,” however, he growled hoo-ah, and that became our word for selah ever after.
Every single morning God loads us up on His shoulders and carries us through the day.
No one knows for certain what selah actually means. Some say it is only a musical notation. It often appears after a truth that calls for a deep-seated, emotional response. In that sense hoo-ah works for me.
This morning I read Psalm 68:19: "Blessed be the Lord, who daily [day to day] loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Selah" (nkjv).
Imagine that! Every single morning God loads us up on His shoulders and carries us through the day. He is our salvation. Thus safe and secure in Him, we’ve no cause for worry or for fear. “Hoo-ah!” I say.
Day by day and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here. Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment, I've no cause for worry or for fear. Lina Sandell Berg
Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, June 20, 2016
Have You Come to “When” Yet?
The Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. —Job 42:10
A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and a determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I pray, “Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer— I will walk rightly before You if You will help me.” But I cannot make myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to surrender all my rights and demands, and cease from every self-effort. I must leave myself completely alone in His hands, and then I can begin to pour my life out in the priestly work of intercession. There is a great deal of prayer that comes from actual disbelief in the atonement. Jesus is not just beginning to save us— He has already saved us completely. It is an accomplished fact, and it is an insult to Him for us to ask Him to do what He has already done.
If you are not now receiving the “hundredfold” which Jesus promised (see Matthew 19:29), and not getting insight into God’s Word, then start praying for your friends— enter into the ministry of the inner life. “The Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends.” As a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer. Whatever circumstances God may place you in, always pray immediately that His atonement may be recognized and as fully understood in the lives of others as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now, and pray for those with whom you come in contact now.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, June 20, 2016
When You're Careless About Clean - #7681
Our girl was always a wonderful daughter and now she's become a wonderful mother. She's incredibly conscientious, attentive, loving - sounds like her father talking, huh? When our grandson was a baby she was pretty careful about what our he ate, about baby proofing everything, about always having him ride in his infant seat - oh, and about cleanliness. Oh yeah, hand sanitizer! That stuff that's called Purell - that antibacterial liquid that works without water. But it's not just Mom and baby who are required to use the sanitizer--oh, no-- any of us who was planning to hold him...especially in those early months when germs can do so much damage. It almost became a joke in our family...you reach for the baby and you will be intercepted by a bottle of Purell! Our daughter understood a very basic principle of staying healthy-if you want to avoid problems, keep your hands clean!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You're Careless About Clean."
We all need to be reminded to keep our hands clean - it's basic to staying healthy. And no one cares more about your being clean than your Father - your Heavenly Father. Listen to His strong words to us in our word for today from the Word of God, Isaiah 52:11, "...Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord"
God wants us to be as concerned about spiritual cleanliness as the mother of a young baby is about physical cleanliness. He says, "Don't handle holy things with dirty hands - or hearts or minds." Holy things like the work of God...like that position you have serving Him...like raising a child. In a way, all of us who belong to Jesus are among those who "carry the vessels of the Lord". We're all representing our holy Savior - who died so we could be clean people in a dirty world.
Which is why He's very hurt and very unhappy that you've gotten a little careless about being really clean. You may, in fact, be silently, imperceptibly infecting something holy with your uncleanness - like your marriage, your family, your ministry, your service for Christ, or your witness for Christ. God has said, "Touch no unclean thing", and maybe you know you have been touching something a child of God should never touch. God says, "Come out from it and be pure ", but you've been getting into something that Jesus calls out-of-bounds.
If you're going to handle holy things - and most of us believers do - then you have to stay unpolluted by what you watch, what you listen to, what you read, what you laugh at, who you're with, negative attitudes, self-serving motives. It could be that your Lord is actually trying to speak to you right now about some compromises that are slowly accumulating spiritual dirt, spiritual germs. He says in James 4:7-8, "...Resist the devil...come near to God... Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded" Now, if God's been seeming farther away lately, if your heart seems to be getting colder, and if your faith seems less powerful - could it be you've been trying to handle the holy with unholy hands?
Physically - and spiritually - when you get careless about cleanliness, you get sick. If you want to avoid problems, it's important to keep your hands clean. And today your Heavenly Father may be holding out His spiritual sanitizer and reaching your direction saying, "Please, get clean before you touch what I love."