Max Lucado Daily: LOOK UP!
God will come to you, my friend— through the word of a scripture or the kindness of a friend. Why, he may even speak to you through a moment like this one. But this much is certain: God comes to his people. Scripture says, “The Commander of the armies of heaven is here among us” (Psalm 46:7 TLB).
You are no exception to this promise! Are you experiencing a Jericho-level challenge? Do you face walls that are too high to breach and too thick to crack? A diagnosis, a difficulty, or a defeat that keeps you from knocking down the walls? If so, do what Joshua did. He lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him. (Joshua 5:13) When Joshua lifted his eyes, he saw Jesus. So, look up…look up! The Lord, your Help, is coming!
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 56
Salvation Is Just Around the Corner
God’s Message:
“Guard my common good:
Do what’s right and do it in the right way,
For salvation is just around the corner,
my setting-things-right is about to go into action.
How blessed are you who enter into these things,
you men and women who embrace them,
Who keep Sabbath and don’t defile it,
who watch your step and don’t do anything evil!
Make sure no outsider who now follows God
ever has occasion to say, ‘God put me in second-class.
I don’t really belong.’
And make sure no physically mutilated person
is ever made to think, ‘I’m damaged goods.
I don’t really belong.’”
4-5 For God says:
“To the mutilated who keep my Sabbaths
and choose what delights me
and keep a firm grip on my covenant,
I’ll provide them an honored place
in my family and within my city,
even more honored than that of sons and daughters.
I’ll confer permanent honors on them
that will never be revoked.
6-8 “And as for the outsiders who now follow me,
working for me, loving my name,
and wanting to be my servants—
All who keep Sabbath and don’t defile it,
holding fast to my covenant—
I’ll bring them to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
They’ll be welcome to worship the same as the ‘insiders,’
to bring burnt offerings and sacrifices to my altar.
Oh yes, my house of worship
will be known as a house of prayer for all people.”
The Decree of the Master, God himself,
who gathers in the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather others also,
gather them in with those already gathered.”
9-12 A call to the savage beasts: Come on the run.
Come, devour, beast barbarians!
For Israel’s watchmen are blind, the whole lot of them.
They have no idea what’s going on.
They’re dogs without sense enough to bark,
lazy dogs, dreaming in the sun—
But hungry dogs, they do know how to eat,
voracious dogs, with never enough.
And these are Israel’s shepherds!
They know nothing, understand nothing.
They all look after themselves,
grabbing whatever’s not nailed down.
“Come,” they say, “let’s have a party.
Let’s go out and get drunk!”
And tomorrow, more of the same:
“Let’s live it up!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Read: Galatians 6:2–10
Nothing but the Cross
Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
6 Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.
7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.
INSIGHT:
Paul told the church of Galatia that when they carried each other’s burdens they reflected and fulfilled the work of Christ. The Greek word translated “carry” in Galatians 6:2 appears thirteen times in the New Testament and means “to bear a heavy or burdensome object.” It is the same word used by the gospel writers in Matthew 8:17, Luke 14:27, and John 19:17. Matthew proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah who “bore our diseases.” Luke recounted Jesus telling His disciples that anyone who would not carry His cross could not be His disciple. And John described our Lord’s struggle as He carried His own cross to Calvary. Carrying one another’s burdens isn’t a kind gesture; it’s a mark of Christlikeness.
We Had No Idea
By Dave Branon
Carry each other’s burdens. Galatians 6:2
Volunteers from a local church spent a frigid evening distributing food to people in a low-income apartment complex. One woman who received the food was overjoyed. She showed them her bare cupboard and told them they were an answer to her prayers.
As the volunteers returned to the church, one woman began to cry. “When I was a little girl,” she said, “that lady was my Sunday school teacher. She’s in church every Sunday. We had no idea she was almost starving!”
Carry each other’s burdens. Galatians 6:2
Clearly, these were caring people who were seeking ways to carry the burdens of others, as Paul suggests in Galatians 6:2. Yet somehow they hadn’t noticed the needs of this woman—someone they saw every Sunday—and she hadn’t shared her needs. This can be a gentle reminder for all of us to be more aware of those around us and, as Paul said, to “do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (6:10).
People who worship together have the privilege of assisting one another so no one in the body of Christ goes without help. As we get to know each other and care for each other, perhaps we won’t ever have to say, “We had no idea.”
Dear Lord, help me to notice the needs of those around me and to do what I can to meet those needs in Your name.
Nothing costs as much as caring—except not caring.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
The Unrivaled Power of Prayer
We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. —Romans 8:26
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don’t often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.
“He,” the Holy Spirit in you, “makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27). And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is.
The Spirit of God uses the nature of the believer as a temple in which to offer His prayers of intercession. “…your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit…” (1 Corinthians 6:19). When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, “…He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple” (Mark 11:16). The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple, and said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer…. But you have made it a ‘den of thieves’ ” (Mark 11:17).
Have we come to realize that our “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, even though only a small part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a “temple of the Holy Spirit.” He will be responsible for the unconscious part which we don’t know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Recycling the Garbage of Your Life - #7782
Florida has many beautiful things about it – great beaches, great theme parks, and great weather. But to be perfectly honest, it's not one of the most exciting states just to drive across. I mean, it's like terminal flatness sort of. You know, like Illinois where I grew up. There's nothing wrong with the South Florida landscape that a nice mountain or a hill wouldn't help. Well, in West Palm Beach there is one. A hill, that is. It actually rises to the breathtaking height of 55' above sea level.
My assistant at the time had a sister in that area who loved to go hiking on and around that beautiful hill. It's wonderfully landscaped. There's some water there, some biking, hiking, jogging trails, and recreational areas. Now anyone who knows the topography of South Florida would wisely ask, "Where did this hill come from?" Garbage. Yep. This lovely spot used to be an ugly, old landfill. But someone had the brilliant idea of making something useful, something even beautiful out of what had just been a lot of garbage.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Recycling the Garbage of Your Life."
It's amazing how they, out of garbage, made something they could never have had otherwise. Actually, that's the kind of miracle God loves to do with some of the foulest experiences of our lives.
In our word for today from the Word of God beginning in Isaiah 61:1, we read this description of Jesus. "The Lord has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion." Now, Jesus comes to do something with the things in our life that, well, we would see only as trash – a broken heart, a physical or emotional prison, a season of darkness, things that make us mourn and grieve. But listen to the amazing beauty He can create from this ugly garbage.
He says He will "bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be (now, remember, the "they" here is broken, damaged, hurting people)...they will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord, for the display of His splendor." Out of the garbage, something glorious!
Now you may be looking at your pain and all you can see is a mountain of stinking, useless trash. But Jesus is looking at it like some engineers and landscapers must have looked at that landfill in Florida, seeing some beautiful things that He can make from it, things you could never have on the landscape of your life if it weren't for the garbage.
Your Savior wants to take the pain that could make you a bitter person and use it to make you a compassionate person. Because you know what hurt or slavery is like, you know how it feels and you have the credentials and you have the sensitivity to be one of God's wounded healers. Jesus wants to use these hard things that could make you move farther from Him to drive you deeper into His love and His power than you ever thought possible.
There's an intimacy and there's a power with God experienced by the hurting people that the whole people will never touch. Through his almost unbearable suffering, Job said this to God, "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You" (Job 42:5). Jesus can use the pain to deeply bond you, not only to Him, but to other people if you'll reach out instead of going in. Some of life's closest relationships are forged in the furnace of suffering. And your Lord can use the things you have hated in your life to get people to listen to you. They'll consider your Savior because they heard about Him from someone who knows what it means to really, really need one.
Beauty from ashes, praise from despair, something very special from something very ugly. If you will let Jesus Christ be the Lord of your life's pile of garbage, He can make of it a mountain from which many will be able to see Him.
