Max Lucado Daily: BEHOLD THE POWER OF PRAYER
What if you could actually see the prayers you pray? The prayers being prayed for you? In John’s vision of heaven in Revelation 8:5 he saw the prayers of the saints ascending with incense into the presence of God. And there were noises, thunderings lightnings, and an earthquake. Behold the power of prayer. You ask God for help, and bam! You lift your concerns to heaven and turbulence happens!
Go ahead. Stand up on behalf of those you love. And yes, stand up on behalf of those you do not. The quickest way to douse the fire of anger is with a bucket of prayer. Rather than rant, rave, or seek revenge… pray. Scripture tells us (Luke 23:34) that while hanging on the cross, Jesus interceded for his enemies. Shouldn’t we do the same? Pray—then wait for the earth to shake.
From God is With You Every Day
2 Chronicles 14
And Abijah rested with his ancestors and was buried in the City of David. Asa his son succeeded him as king, and in his days the country was at peace for ten years.
Asa King of Judah
2 Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. 3 He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles.[d] 4 He commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his laws and commands. 5 He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him. 6 He built up the fortified cities of Judah, since the land was at peace. No one was at war with him during those years, for the Lord gave him rest.
7 “Let us build up these towns,” he said to Judah, “and put walls around them, with towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours, because we have sought the Lord our God; we sought him and he has given us rest on every side.” So they built and prospered.
8 Asa had an army of three hundred thousand men from Judah, equipped with large shields and with spears, and two hundred and eighty thousand from Benjamin, armed with small shields and with bows. All these were brave fighting men.
9 Zerah the Cushite marched out against them with an army of thousands upon thousands and three hundred chariots, and came as far as Mareshah. 10 Asa went out to meet him, and they took up battle positions in the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah.
11 Then Asa called to the Lord his God and said, “Lord, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. Lord, you are our God; do not let mere mortals prevail against you.”
12 The Lord struck down the Cushites before Asa and Judah. The Cushites fled, 13 and Asa and his army pursued them as far as Gerar. Such a great number of Cushites fell that they could not recover; they were crushed before the Lord and his forces. The men of Judah carried off a large amount of plunder. 14 They destroyed all the villages around Gerar, for the terror of the Lord had fallen on them. They looted all these villages, since there was much plunder there. 15 They also attacked the camps of the herders and carried off droves of sheep and goats and camels. Then they returned to Jerusalem.
Footnotes:
2 Chronicles 14:1 In Hebrew texts 14:1 is numbered 13:23, and 14:2-15 is numbered 14:1-14.
2 Chronicles 14:3 That is, wooden symbols of the goddess Asherah; here and elsewhere in 2 Chronicles
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Read: Psalm 25:1–15
A David Psalm
1-2 My head is high, God, held high;
I’m looking to you, God;
No hangdog skulking for me.
3 I’ve thrown in my lot with you;
You won’t embarrass me, will you?
Or let my enemies get the best of me?
Don’t embarrass any of us
Who went out on a limb for you.
It’s the traitors who should be humiliated.
4 Show me how you work, God;
School me in your ways.
5 Take me by the hand;
Lead me down the path of truth.
You are my Savior, aren’t you?
6 Mark the milestones of your mercy and love, God;
Rebuild the ancient landmarks!
7 Forget that I sowed wild oats;
Mark me with your sign of love.
Plan only the best for me, God!
8 God is fair and just;
He corrects the misdirected,
Sends them in the right direction.
9 He gives the rejects his hand,
And leads them step-by-step.
10 From now on every road you travel
Will take you to God.
Follow the Covenant signs;
Read the charted directions.
11 Keep up your reputation, God;
Forgive my bad life;
It’s been a very bad life.
12 My question: What are God-worshipers like?
Your answer: Arrows aimed at God’s bull’s-eye.
13 They settle down in a promising place;
Their kids inherit a prosperous farm.
14 God-friendship is for God-worshipers;
They are the ones he confides in.
15 If I keep my eyes on God,
I won’t trip over my own feet.
INSIGHT:
The book of Psalms is actually a collection of 150 songs/poems written for and used in Hebrew worship. These songs were composed over the span of approximately 1,000 years, stretching from the time of Moses to Israel’s post-exilic period. Psalm 25 is designated as an individual lament and is attributed to David.
Marking Time
By David McCasland
Let no one who waits on You be ashamed. Psalm 25:3 nkjv
The military command, “Mark Time, March” means to march in place without moving forward. It is an active pause in forward motion while remaining mentally prepared and expectantly waiting the next command.
In everyday language, the term marking time has come to mean “motion without progress, not getting anywhere, not doing anything important while you wait.” It conveys a feeling of idle, meaningless waiting.
Waiting on God is active trust in Him.
In contrast, the word wait in the Bible often means “to look eagerly for, to hope, and to expect.” The psalmist, when facing great difficulties, wrote: “O my God, I trust in You; let me not be ashamed; let not my enemies triumph over me. Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed” (Ps. 25:2–3 nkjv).
We often have no choice about the things we must wait for—a medical diagnosis, a job interview result, the return of a loved one—but we can decide how we wait. Rather than giving in to fear or apathy, we can continue to “march in place,” actively seeking God’s strength and direction each day.
“Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; on You I wait all the day” (vv. 4–5 nkjv).
Lord, give me grace to embrace the pauses in my life, and to be prepared to follow Your next command.
Waiting on God is active trust in Him.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
The Submission of the Believer
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. —John 13:13
Our Lord never insists on having authority over us. He never says, “You will submit to me.” No, He leaves us perfectly free to choose— so free, in fact, that we can spit in His face or we can put Him to death, as others have done; and yet He will never say a word. But once His life has been created in me through His redemption, I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a complete and effective domination, in which I acknowledge that “You are worthy, O Lord…” (Revelation 4:11). It is simply the unworthiness within me that refuses to bow down or to submit to one who is worthy. When I meet someone who is more holy than myself, and I don’t recognize his worthiness, nor obey his instructions for me, it is a sign of my own unworthiness being revealed. God teaches us by using these people who are a little better than we are; not better intellectually, but more holy. And He continues to do so until we willingly submit. Then the whole attitude of our life is one of obedience to Him.
If our Lord insisted on our obedience, He would simply become a taskmaster and cease to have any real authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we truly see Him we will instantly obey Him. Then He is easily Lord of our life, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The level of my growth in grace is revealed by the way I look at obedience. We should have a much higher view of the word obedience, rescuing it from the mire of the world. Obedience is only possible between people who are equals in their relationship to each other; like the relationship between father and son, not that between master and servant. Jesus showed this relationship by saying, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30). “…though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). The Son was obedient as our Redeemer, because He was the Son, not in order to become God’s Son.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The place for the comforter is not that of one who preaches, but of the comrade who says nothing, but prays to God about the matter. The biggest thing you can do for those who are suffering is not to talk platitudes, not to ask questions, but to get into contact with God, and the “greater works” will be done by prayer (see John 14:12–13). Baffled to Fight Better, 56 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
Many Dry Wells And One Gushing Spring - #7702
Life wasn't easy on the little farm where my wife grew up. The land was hard to farm, the money was pretty hard to come by, and the water was sometimes even harder to come by. In fact, on several occasions, Dad tried to dig a well. Again and again, they dug but they ended up only with dry wells. Thankfully, though, there was this spring not too far away. My wife actually remembers her grandfather hitching up Jack and Betsy – that was two mules, not cousins, and going down to this amazing spring that just gushed horizontally out of the rocks. And with each trip, they'd bring back two large barrels of water.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Many Dry Wells And One Gushing Spring."
That's not just the survival story of one farm family I know. That's the spiritual and emotional survival story of a whole lot of people over the years. The wells they were depending on were dry, but there was still one gushing spring. That story may be your story right now.
In 1 Samuel 30, beginning with verse 3, our word for today from the Word of God, we can see from a tragedy in David's life a flesh-and-blood example of how to make it when all your wells go dry on you. David and his men have been out on a military mission and now they're returning to their base camp at a place called Ziklag. The Bible says, "When David and his men came to Ziklag, they found it destroyed by fire and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive." The things they owned and the people they loved – gone.
The Bible goes on to say that "each one was bitter in spirit" and David's own men were even "talking of stoning him." It was a dark, dark moment. Yet, as everyone else was turning bitter and angry, God says, "but David found strength in the Lord his God." Here he is standing amid the rubble of everything he had, having lost the people he loved most, with the guys he thought he could depend on turning against him. All the wells he could go to for strength are dry.
That may be just the point you feel you're at right now. All those places that you would normally turn for the strength and encouragement you need just aren't able to meet your need at this time. You're feeling pretty alone. Bitterness, discouragement, anger, depression are starting to creep into your soul.
But at a moment like this, David remembered the spring! There is a spring that never runs dry, that's gushing water for your soul even in the midst of an unrelenting drought. David turned to the infinite resources of the Lord his God and found strength when it seemed no strength was possible. How much strength? David rallies his troops to defy the enemy who robbed them and to take back what the enemy has stolen. It says, "David fought them from dusk until the evening of the next day, and not one of them got away...David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken." All the ground that had been lost was retaken because one man downloaded strength from the Lord who was his God when all human strength was gone.
This is no time for you to give up, or withdraw, or slip into the darkness. This is a time for you to fight back! Especially if there are other people looking to you, depending on you, like David. You'll need strength you don't have – that no one else can give you, except the awesome God you belong to. If you're defeated, it will only be because you went to one of those dry old wells to get some help instead of the gushing spring of the strength of Almighty God, whose strength and provision and joy is not rooted in our circumstances, or our feelings, or our finances, or human beings. He is the Lord who rules a hundred billion galaxies, and the Lord is your God! That's all you need to bounce back and win this one! He's your Source.
Yes, the wells you've counted on may be dry. But no matter what you've lost, no matter how dark it looks, you have got a spring that never runs dry!
