Max Lucado Daily: TRUST HIS TRAINING
Each day has a pop quiz! And some seasons are like final exams. Brutal, sudden pitfalls of stress, sickness, or sadness. What is the purpose of the test? James 1:3-4 says, “For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”
Test, test, test! This chapter in your life may look like rehab, smell like unemployment, sound like a hospital, but you are in training. God hasn’t forgotten you—just the opposite. He has chosen to train you. Forget the notion that God doesn’t see your struggle. Quite the contrary. God is fully engaged. He is the Potter, we are the clay. He’s the Shepherd, we’re the sheep. He is the Teacher, we are the students. Trust His training. You will get through this!
From You’ll Get Through This
Isaiah 24
The Lord’s Devastation of the Earth
See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth
and devastate it;
he will ruin its face
and scatter its inhabitants—
2 it will be the same
for priest as for people,
for the master as for his servant,
for the mistress as for her servant,
for seller as for buyer,
for borrower as for lender,
for debtor as for creditor.
3 The earth will be completely laid waste
and totally plundered.
The Lord has spoken this word.
4 The earth dries up and withers,
the world languishes and withers,
the heavens languish with the earth.
5 The earth is defiled by its people;
they have disobeyed the laws,
violated the statutes
and broken the everlasting covenant.
6 Therefore a curse consumes the earth;
its people must bear their guilt.
Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up,
and very few are left.
7 The new wine dries up and the vine withers;
all the merrymakers groan.
8 The joyful timbrels are stilled,
the noise of the revelers has stopped,
the joyful harp is silent.
9 No longer do they drink wine with a song;
the beer is bitter to its drinkers.
10 The ruined city lies desolate;
the entrance to every house is barred.
11 In the streets they cry out for wine;
all joy turns to gloom,
all joyful sounds are banished from the earth.
12 The city is left in ruins,
its gate is battered to pieces.
13 So will it be on the earth
and among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.
14 They raise their voices, they shout for joy;
from the west they acclaim the Lord’s majesty.
15 Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord;
exalt the name of the Lord, the God of Israel,
in the islands of the sea.
16 From the ends of the earth we hear singing:
“Glory to the Righteous One.”
But I said, “I waste away, I waste away!
Woe to me!
The treacherous betray!
With treachery the treacherous betray!”
17 Terror and pit and snare await you,
people of the earth.
18 Whoever flees at the sound of terror
will fall into a pit;
whoever climbs out of the pit
will be caught in a snare.
The floodgates of the heavens are opened,
the foundations of the earth shake.
19 The earth is broken up,
the earth is split asunder,
the earth is violently shaken.
20 The earth reels like a drunkard,
it sways like a hut in the wind;
so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion
that it falls—never to rise again.
21 In that day the Lord will punish
the powers in the heavens above
and the kings on the earth below.
22 They will be herded together
like prisoners bound in a dungeon;
they will be shut up in prison
and be punished[d] after many days.
23 The moon will be dismayed,
the sun ashamed;
for the Lord Almighty will reign
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and before its elders—with great glory.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Read: Psalm 100
A Thanksgiving Psalm
On your feet now—applaud God!
Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.
3 Know this: God is God, and God, God.
He made us; we didn’t make him.
We’re his people, his well-tended sheep.
4 Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.
5 For God is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever.
INSIGHT:
Psalm 100 is poetry packed with image-rich language. When the psalmist says we are the Lord’s, this reminds us of His creative and redeeming work. The Bible tells us that if we have faith in Christ, we are His in at least two ways: We are His because He created us (Gen. 1:26–31) and because He has adopted us as His family (Eph. 1:5). The psalmist also uses the image of a sheep. We are “the sheep of His pasture.” We belong to Him and can enter His gates because we are under His care. Jesus Himself uses this image of sheep and gates in John 10:7–9 when explaining what it means to be saved.
The Gates of Worship
By Marvin Williams
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalm 100:4
When you enter some of the greatest cities in the world, you can encounter famous gates such as the Brandenburg Gate (Berlin), the Jaffa Gate (Jerusalem), and the gates at Downing Street (London). Whether the gates were built for defensive or ceremonial purposes, they all represent the difference between being outside or inside certain areas of the city. Some are open; some are closed to all but a few.
The gates into the presence of God are always open. The familiar song of Psalm 100 is an invitation for the Israelites to enter into the presence of God through the temple gates. They were told to “shout for joy” and “come before him with joyful songs” (vv. 1–2). Shouting for joy was an appropriate expression when greeting a monarch in the ancient world. All the earth was to sing joyfully about God! The reason for this joyful noise was that God had given them their identity (v. 3). They entered the gates with praise and thanksgiving because of God’s goodness and His steadfast and enduring love which continues through all generations (vv. 4–5). Even when they forgot their identity and wandered away from Him, God remained faithful and still invited them to enter His presence.
The gates into God’s presence are still open, inviting us to come and worship.
The gates into God’s presence are still open, inviting us to come and worship.
What should motivate us to worship God? What statement of praise could you give to God today?
The gates into the presence of God are always open.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 22, 2016
The Missionary’s Master and Teacher
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am ….I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master… —John 13:13, 16
To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. Having a master and teacher means that there is someone who knows me better than I know myself, who is closer than a friend, and who understands the remotest depths of my heart and is able to satisfy them fully. It means having someone who has made me secure in the knowledge that he has met and solved all the doubts, uncertainties, and problems in my mind. To have a master and teacher is this and nothing less— “…for One is your Teacher, the Christ…” (Matthew 23:8).
Our Lord never takes measures to make me do what He wants. Sometimes I wish God would master and control me to make me do what He wants, but He will not. And at other times I wish He would leave me alone, and He does not.
“You call Me Teacher and Lord…”— but is He? Teacher, Master, and Lord have little place in our vocabulary. We prefer the words Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer. The only word that truly describes the experience of being mastered is love, and we know little about love as God reveals it in His Word. The way we use the word obey is proof of this. In the Bible, obedience is based on a relationship between equals; for example, that of a son with his father. Our Lord was not simply God’s servant— He was His Son. “…though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience…” (Hebrews 5:8). If we are consciously aware that we are being mastered, that idea itself is proof that we have no master. If that is our attitude toward Jesus, we are far away from having the relationship He wants with us. He wants us in a relationship where He is so easily our Master and Teacher that we have no conscious awareness of it— a relationship where all we know is that we are His to obey.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Our danger is to water down God’s word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He fits me to suit His word. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 22, 2016
No Time to Pray, No Hope If I Don't - #7749
Kasey pretty much blew high school. He was on our ministry team and he was a walking miracle. The pain of his childhood set him up to make some lousy choices, like drugs for example. He quit high school. He was headed for a wasted life or an early death until he met Jesus at the age of 19. He left all the junk of his past behind him and started a passionate study of God's Word, like memorizing hundreds of verses! Kasey wanted to get college training, but he knew that meant taking the GED test to get a Graduation Equivalency Diploma. He had pretty much failed math, he failed English and all the subjects he was about to be tested on. They were timed tests, something like 25-50 minutes. But at the beginning of each test, he bowed his head and prayed for about 10 minutes. The teacher administering the test walked up to him and said, "Excuse me, but I think you're going to need all the time. It's challenging to get it done with all the minutes you've got. You've got no time to pray." Kasey's answer? "There's no hope if I don't."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Time to Pray, No Hope if I Don't."
Would you like to know how the praying test-taker did? Stay tuned. First, our word for today from the Word of God, Ephesians 6:18. It comes at the end of God's description of how to win your spiritual battles. This is the capstone verse, "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." Even when the pressure is really on? Even when you don't have time to pray? Especially when you don't have time!
In spite of the fact that my friend had failed most of the subjects he was now being tested on, he didn't miss a single math question! And he only missed two questions in all his English testing! He totally aced those tests, finishing every one in time with 10 minutes of praying taken out of his time!
I want you to remember that picture. It's a living example of a truth that we desperately need to live on. Time spent in prayer is not time wasted, it is not time lost, it is time, believe it or not, that will save time and effort. It's time that can make things go much more smoothly and quickly than if you hadn't taken time with God about them.
God has made it clear that He wants to keep hearing from us, no matter what the squeeze we're in. In Luke 18:1, Jesus showed His disciples that "they should always pray and not give up." In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, God tells us to "pray continually". Not just in spiritual binges – continually!
The reason it's so hard for us to pray when things are really tight is because of where our trust really is. We say it's in God, but in reality we're really trusting in our work to get it done, our effort, our meetings, our persuasion, our planning. "You know, if I just work a little harder, if I make a better plan, if I convince a few more people," that's where our real faith is. And you can tell by the proportion of our time we put into our effort compared with the proportion of time we put into bringing it to our Heavenly Father.
Things happen when you pray that can make the job so much easier. As you linger in God's presence, you get breakthrough insights into people or situations, people you've been trying to change start changing, hard hearts get softened, resources get released and immovable obstacles start moving because you have made prayer your #1 method of getting things done. Did you get that? Prayer – your Number One method of getting it done.
There are miracles waiting for you if you will pay the price of praying when you feel like there's just no time for it. You may think there's no time to pray, when, in fact, there's no hope if you don't.
