Max Lucado Daily: EVERYONE CAN DO SOMETHING
The day was special. Jesus was in town. The people asked him to read the scripture and he accepted. He read: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted” (Luke 4:18). Jesus had a target audience. The poor…the brokenhearted. This is my mission statement, Jesus declared.
The Nazareth Manifesto. Shouldn’t it be ours, as well? Shouldn’t it look something like this: Let the church act on behalf of the poor and the broken-hearted. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. The ultimate solution to poverty is found in the compassion of God’s people. Poverty is not the lack of charity but the lack of justice. Righteous anger would do a world of good.
From God is With You Every Day
Romans 9:16-33
Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. God told Moses, “I’m in charge of mercy. I’m in charge of compassion.” Compassion doesn’t originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God’s mercy. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, “I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power.” All we’re saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill.
19 Are you going to object, “So how can God blame us for anything since he’s in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?”
20-33 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well:
I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”
they’re calling you “God’s living children.”
Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:
If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
and the sum labeled “chosen of God,”
They’d be numbers still, not names;
salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn’t count us; he calls us by name.
Arithmetic is not his focus.
Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:
If our powerful God
had not provided us a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:
Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can’t get around.
But the stone is me! If you’re looking for me,
you’ll find me on the way, not in the way.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Read: Genesis 3:1–7
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
INSIGHT:
In Genesis 3, the serpent twists what God has said to Adam and Eve about the fruit in the garden. Rather than directly challenge what God has said, the serpent exaggerates the claim by asking if God commanded no eating from any tree (v. 1). This distortion on the part of the serpent elicits a similar response from Eve. Instead of responding with God’s own words (see the example of Jesus’s confrontation with Satan in the wilderness in Matthew 4), Eve adds to His words. After rightly correcting that it is only from the tree in the middle of the garden that they may not eat, she adds the prohibition that they may not “touch” the tree (Gen. 3:3).
Watchful and Alert
By Lawrence Darmani
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith. 1 Corinthians 16:13
My desk sits close to a window that opens into our neighborhood. From that vantage point I’m privileged to watch birds perch on the trees nearby. Some come to the window to eat insects trapped in the screen.
The birds check their immediate surroundings for any danger, listening attentively as they look about them. Only when they are satisfied that there is no danger do they settle down to feed. Even then, they pause every few seconds to scan the area.
The best way to escape temptation is to run to God.
The vigilance these birds demonstrate reminds me that the Bible teaches us to practice vigilance as Christians. Our world is full of temptations, and we need to remain constantly alert and not forget about the dangers. Like Adam and Eve, we easily get entangled in attractions that make the things of this world seem “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Gen. 3:6).
“Be on your guard,” Paul admonished, “stand firm in the faith” (1 Cor. 16:13). And Peter cautioned, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
As we work for our own daily bread, are we alert to what could start consuming us? Are we watching for any hint of self-confidence or willfulness that could leave us wishing we had trusted our God?
Lord, keep us from the secret sins and selfish reactions we’re so naturally inclined toward. By Your grace, turn our temptations into moments of growth in Christlikeness.
The best way to escape temptation is to run to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Obedience or Independence?
If you love Me, keep My commandments. —John 14:15
Our Lord never insists on obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him. That is why whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an “If,” meaning, “You do not need to do this unless you desire to do so.” “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself…” (Luke 9:23). In other words, “To be My disciple, let him give up his right to himself to Me.” Our Lord is not talking about our eternal position, but about our being of value to Him in this life here and now. That is why He sounds so stern (see Luke 14:26). Never try to make sense from these words by separating them from the One who spoke them.
The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself. Jesus Christ will not force me to obey Him, but I must. And as soon as I obey Him, I fulfill my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small, petty happenings, altogether insignificant. But if I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God. Then, when I stand face to face with God, I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed. When God’s redemption brings a human soul to the point of obedience, it always produces. If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
“When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” We all have faith in good principles, in good management, in good common sense, but who amongst us has faith in Jesus Christ? Physical courage is grand, moral courage is grander, but the man who trusts Jesus Christ in the face of the terrific problems of life is worth a whole crowd of heroes. The Highest Good, 544 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
God's Little Signs of His Something Big - #7778
I have some great memories of ministering in South Africa some years ago. Got to reach some lost young people and their parents, and train youth leaders to reach young people as well. My schedule was really intense, but our Field Director and I managed to sneak away for a couple of hours in a wild game park. And the Lord of all those African creatures was really good to us, because He sent us zebras and rhinos and hippos, and many more of God's African best.
But our most unforgettable moment began when our driver said, "Whoa, that's fresh! Keep your eyes open for an elephant." Her "that's fresh", referred to a broken branch she saw in the middle of the little road we were on. Now, the staff member I was with and I were a little skeptical, but not for long. As we rounded a bend, there he was – a big old elephant lumbering down the road ahead of us. We followed behind him for a while and then we watched with ringside seats as he stepped off into a little pond, watered himself and sprayed himself. It was amazing! See, our driver saw just this little sign and knew that something really impressive was coming up!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "God's Little Signs of His Something Big."
Now, God may very well be doing something big on the trail just ahead of you. You can't see it yet, but it's important to be able to see the little signs of "God's something big." That's part of what faith is all about.
Elijah had prayed that God would show His power in Israel by sending a three-year drought. In our word for today in 1 Kings 18, beginning in verse 42, we see why the Bible presents him as a man whose prayer was "powerful and effective" (James 5:16). Now he's praying for the drought to end. It says, "Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. 'Go and look toward the sea,' he told his servant. And he went up and looked. 'There is nothing there,' he said. Seven times Elijah said, 'Go back.' The seventh time the servant reported, 'A cloud as small as a man's hand is rising from the sea.' So Elijah said, 'Go and tell Ahab (the king), 'Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.'" It hadn't rained for three years, but Elijah saw that little cloud and he said, "It's coming!"
Elijah kind of reminds me of our guide and driver there in that African game park. His eyes are wide open, looking for and expecting some early sign of the major work God was about to do. We saw a branch, and the one with the trained eye said, "Get ready for an elephant." Elijah's servant saw a little cloud, and Elijah, with his trained eye for God at work, said, "Get ready for a deluge."
So often, we are so focused on the "elephant" we're praying for that we miss the little branch in the road. We want that big thing from God – sometimes so much, that we miss the little things He is doing on the way to the big thing. Great faith includes the ability to look for and recognize the trail of God in your life; to be able to track the signs of what God is doing.
So I'd encourage you to open your eyes today for the wonderful things God is already doing around you – the little cloud that will enlarge your faith to expect the big rain, the little buds that will fuel your faith to expect the glory of spring. This winter will end.
A lot of times we are unnecessarily discouraged and disheartened because we don't see the tracks of God that are all over our day. I call them "God sightings". That's why praise is so important. A heart that is a praising heart is always looking around for God at work and regularly sending up praise. It may not be very large or not very dramatic, but there's God again, working in your life.
In Psalm 5:3, David says, "In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation." The test of whether you have really trusted God in your prayer is whether or not you are expectant after you say "amen".
So right now, right where you are, there are little signs of God at work; the "branch" that says the "elephant" is ahead. Before God shows you the big things up ahead, He wants you to see Him in the little things that are right in front of you!
