Max Lucado Daily: LIVING AS GOD’S CHILD
We never outgrow our need for a father’s love. We were wired to receive it! May I tell you just a bit about that love? Listen closely. The words I give you are God’s. Don’t filter, resist or deflect them. Just receive them.
My child, I want you in my new kingdom. I have swept away your offenses like the morning clouds, your sins like the morning mist. I have redeemed you. The transaction is sealed; the matter is settled. I God, have made my choice. I have chosen you to be part of my forever family.
God will never let you go. You belong to him. He wants to be your Father. All your efforts to win his affection are unnecessary. All your fears of losing his affection are needless. The adoption is irreversible. Accept your place as God’s adopted child.
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 7
A Virgin Will Bear a Son
During the time that Ahaz son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel attacked Jerusalem, but the attack sputtered out. When the Davidic government learned that Aram had joined forces with Ephraim (that is, Israel), Ahaz and his people were badly shaken. They shook like trees in the wind.
3-6 Then God told Isaiah, “Go and meet Ahaz. Take your son Shear-jashub (A-Remnant-Will-Return) with you. Meet him south of the city at the end of the aqueduct where it empties into the upper pool on the road to the public laundry. Tell him, Listen, calm down. Don’t be afraid. And don’t panic over these two burnt-out cases, Rezin of Aram and the son of Remaliah. They talk big but there’s nothing to them. Aram, along with Ephraim’s son of Remaliah, have plotted to do you harm. They’ve conspired against you, saying, ‘Let’s go to war against Judah, dismember it, take it for ourselves, and set the son of Tabeel up as a puppet king over it.’
7-9 But God, the Master, says,
“It won’t happen.
Nothing will come of it
Because the capital of Aram is Damascus
and the king of Damascus is a mere man, Rezin.
As for Ephraim, in sixty-five years
it will be rubble, nothing left of it.
The capital of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the king of Samaria is the mere son of Remaliah.
If you don’t take your stand in faith,
you won’t have a leg to stand on.”
10-11 God spoke again to Ahaz. This time he said, “Ask for a sign from your God. Ask anything. Be extravagant. Ask for the moon!”
12 But Ahaz said, “I’d never do that. I’d never make demands like that on God!”
13-17 So Isaiah told him, “Then listen to this, government of David! It’s bad enough that you make people tired with your pious, timid hypocrisies, but now you’re making God tired. So the Master is going to give you a sign anyway. Watch for this: A girl who is presently a virgin will get pregnant. She’ll bear a son and name him Immanuel (God-With-Us). By the time the child is twelve years old, able to make moral decisions, the threat of war will be over. Relax, those two kings that have you so worried will be out of the picture. But also be warned: God will bring on you and your people and your government a judgment worse than anything since the time the kingdom split, when Ephraim left Judah. The king of Assyria is coming!”
18-19 That’s when God will whistle for the flies at the headwaters of Egypt’s Nile, and whistle for the bees in the land of Assyria. They’ll come and infest every nook and cranny of this country. There’ll be no getting away from them.
20 And that’s when the Master will take the razor rented from across the Euphrates—the king of Assyria no less!—and shave the hair off your heads and genitals, leaving you shamed, exposed, and denuded. He’ll shave off your beards while he’s at it.
21-22 It will be a time when survivors will count themselves lucky to have a cow and a couple of sheep. At least they’ll have plenty of milk! Whoever’s left in the land will learn to make do with the simplest foods—curds, whey, and honey.
23-25 But that’s not the end of it. This country that used to be covered with fine vineyards—thousands of them, worth millions!—will revert to a weed patch. Weeds and thornbushes everywhere! Good for nothing except, perhaps, hunting rabbits. Cattle and sheep will forage as best they can in the fields of weeds—but there won’t be a trace of all those fertile and well-tended gardens and fields.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Read: John 8:31–37
If the Son Sets You Free
Then Jesus turned to the Jews who had claimed to believe in him. “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.”
33 Surprised, they said, “But we’re descendants of Abraham. We’ve never been slaves to anyone. How can you say, ‘The truth will free you’?”
34-38 Jesus said, “I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. A slave is a transient, who can’t come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through. I know you are Abraham’s descendants. But I also know that you are trying to kill me because my message hasn’t yet penetrated your thick skulls. I’m talking about things I have seen while keeping company with the Father, and you just go on doing what you have heard from your father.”
INSIGHT:
Our Lord’s conversation with religious leaders who opposed Him reveals the contrast between man-made legalism and God’s truth. Christ says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). Human beings were made to have fellowship with God, but our rebellion resulted in our being enslaved by sin. Accepting the truth of God’s Word and yielding to Him breaks this bondage. The religious people who opposed Christ clung to their heritage as descendants of Abraham for their spiritual foundation, but only Christ can free us from our sinful, self-centered preoccupation.
Free Indeed
By Bill Crowder
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36
Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745–1796) was only 11 years old when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. He made the harrowing journey from West Africa to the West Indies, then to the colony of Virgina, and then to England. By the age of 20 he purchased his own freedom, still bearing the emotional and physical scars of the inhumane treatment he had experienced.
Unable to enjoy his own freedom while others were still enslaved, Equiano became active in the movement to abolish slavery in England. He wrote his autobiography (an unheard of achievement for a former slave in that era) in which he described the horrific treatment of the enslaved.
The price of our freedom from sin was paid by Jesus’s blood.
When Jesus came, He fought a battle for all of us who are enslaved and unable to fight for ourselves. Our slavery is not one of outward chains. We are held by our own brokenness and sin. Jesus said, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:34–36).
Wherever such a freedom seems unheard of, His words need to be declared. We can be liberated from our guilt, shame, and hopelessness. By trusting Jesus, we can be free indeed!
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for making the sacrifice that has secured my freedom and eternal life. May I learn to love You in a way that honors the love You have shown me.
The price of our freedom from sin was paid by Jesus’s blood.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
“My Joy…Your Joy”
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. —John 15:11
What was the joy that Jesus had? Joy should not be confused with happiness. In fact, it is an insult to Jesus Christ to use the word happiness in connection with Him. The joy of Jesus was His absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice to His Father— the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do— “…who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross…” (Hebrews 12:2). “I delight to do Your will, O my God…” (Psalm 40:8). Jesus prayed that our joy might continue fulfilling itself until it becomes the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?
Living a full and overflowing life does not rest in bodily health, in circumstances, nor even in seeing God’s work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the same fellowship and oneness with Him that Jesus Himself enjoyed. But the first thing that will hinder this joy is the subtle irritability caused by giving too much thought to our circumstances. Jesus said, “…the cares of this world,…choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). And before we even realize what has happened, we are caught up in our cares. All that God has done for us is merely the threshold— He wants us to come to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim who Jesus is.
Have the right relationship with God, finding your joy there, and out of you “will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). Be a fountain through which Jesus can pour His “living water.” Stop being hypocritical and proud, aware only of yourself, and live “your life…hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). A person who has the right relationship with God lives a life as natural as breathing wherever he goes. The lives that have been the greatest blessing to you are the lives of those people who themselves were unaware of having been a blessing.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them. The Place of Help, 1032 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Church With a Pulse - #7733
A pastor friend of mine wrote recently and caught my attention with these words: "I'm thankful that the Lord has a sense of humor." He went on to tell about a Sunday some 55 years ago. He was in child care during the Sunday morning worship service with a friend of his, and they decided they wanted to find out what the "grownups" were doing in the sanctuary. So they devised an elaborate escape plan. They waited until the adult child care workers weren't looking and they made their break. (Man, does this sound like something I could have done!) At an opportune moment, they darted out of the kindergarten room, determined to see what went on in that morning worship service. Unfortunately, one boy got caught at the last minute, but he yelled to my friend, "Keep going, Paul! They got me!"
With adults in hot pursuit, my friend entered the first door he found into the sanctuary and found himself on the platform with the entire church looking at him. (You're busted!) He had come in during the offering and both pastors were seated, doing nothing. To five-year-old eyes, it looked as if nothing was happening. The little explorer thought, "Is this all church is?" It was about that time his grandmother motioned to him to come down from the platform to her pew. In his words, "I was summarily grabbed, placed down next to her and told that I was in more trouble than I could ever imagine." Here's a fun footnote: for the past 25 years, the little boy who invaded that service? Yeah, he's been the pastor of that church!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Church With a Pulse."
A little boy checks out what's happening in church and finds what appears to be little or nothing going on. There probably are some churches where that's actually the case. It was never meant to be that way. Jesus announced the birth of His Church with these amazing words: "I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it" (Matthew 16:18).
That's the plan, that the church of Jesus Christ be a winner, not a loser! His church, which is visibly represented on earth by Bible-based congregations all over the world, is His face in the world, His voice in the world, His hands and feet to do His work in the world.
But sometimes a church settles into a rut where it just kind of keeps that religious machine cranking, the most vocal saints happy and comfy, and it pretty much exists just to keep itself going. What a tragic detour from the Master's plan! If you want to see what Jesus has in mind for any church that bears His Name, take a look at our word for today from the Word of God in Acts 2, beginning with verse 42. You'll find at least five passions of church as it was meant to be.
The Bible says: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." First passion: a powerful appetite for the Lord. Healthy believers can't get enough of His Word, of prayer, or of being with His people. Acts goes on to say "...everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles." Second passion: expecting God to do the supernatural. This passage goes on to say they "...had everything in common...they gave to anyone as he had need." Third passion of a church with a pulse: looking for and taking care of people's needs.
Acts then says, "Every day they continued to meet together...they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts." There's that fourth passion: being totally committed to each other. Then, "The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." One final passion that drove them: talking up Jesus. That's the only way people could be getting saved every day!
That's the standard to measure your church by. Is there a powerful appetite for the Lord? Are you expecting God to do the supernatural? Are you looking for and taking care of people's needs? Are you totally committed to each other? Are you talking up Jesus? If it's not that way, be a thermostat that helps set that temperature, not just a thermometer that reflects the chilly reading. Jesus loves His church. Jesus is counting on His church.
Let's do all we can to help the church be the church – a church with a pulse!