Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS NEVER SURPRISED
Most people suffer from small thoughts about God. In an effort to see him as our friend, we have lost his immensity. In our desire to understand him, we have sought to contain him. The God of the Bible cannot be contained. He brought order out of chaos and created creation. He consulted no committee. He sought no counsel. He said, “I am God and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me” (Isaiah 46:9 NIV).
The greatest kings have surrendered their crowns. The queen of England is called Her Majesty, yet she must eat and bathe and rest. The True Majesty is never hungry. He never sleeps. He has never needed assistance or attention. “He sustains everything by the mighty power of his command” (Hebrews 1:3 NLT). He has authority over the world—over your world! And he has never, ever uttered the phrase, “How did that happen?”
From God is With You Every Day
Isaiah 57
Never Tired of Trying New Religions
Meanwhile, right-living people die
and no one gives them a thought.
God-fearing people are carted off
and no one even notices.
The right-living people are out of their misery,
they’re finally at rest.
They lived well and with dignity
and now they’re finally at peace.
3-10 “But you, children of a witch, come here!
Sons of a slut, daughters of a whore.
What business do you have taunting,
sneering, and sticking out your tongue?
Do you have any idea what wretches you’ve turned out to be?
A race of rebels, a generation of liars.
You satisfy your lust any place you find some shade
and fornicate at whim.
You kill your children at any convenient spot—
any cave or crevasse will do.
You take stones from the creek
and set up your sex-and-religion shrines.
You’ve chosen your fate.
Your worship will be your doom.
You’ve climbed a high mountain
to practice your foul sex-and-death religion.
Behind closed doors
you assemble your precious gods and goddesses.
Deserting me, you’ve gone all out, stripped down
and made your bed your place of worship.
You’ve climbed into bed with the ‘sacred’ whores
and loved every minute of it,
adoring every curve of their naked bodies.
You anoint your king-god with ointments
and lavish perfumes on yourselves.
You send scouts to search out the latest in religion,
send them all the way to hell and back.
You wear yourselves out trying the new and the different,
and never see what a waste it all is.
You’ve always found strength for the latest fad,
never got tired of trying new religions.
11-13 “Who talked you into the pursuit of this nonsense,
leaving me high and dry,
forgetting you ever knew me?
Because I don’t yell and make a scene
do you think I don’t exist?
I’ll go over, detail by detail, all your ‘righteous’ attempts at religion,
and expose the absurdity of it all.
Go ahead, cry for help to your collection of no-gods:
A good wind will blow them away.
They’re smoke, nothing but smoke.
“But anyone who runs to me for help
will inherit the land,
will end up owning my holy mountain!”
14 Someone says: “Build, build! Make a road!
Clear the way, remove the rocks
from the road my people will travel.”
15-21 A Message from the high and towering God,
who lives in Eternity,
whose name is Holy:
“I live in the high and holy places,
but also with the low-spirited, the spirit-crushed,
And what I do is put new spirit in them,
get them up and on their feet again.
For I’m not going to haul people into court endlessly,
I’m not going to be angry forever.
Otherwise, people would lose heart.
These souls I created would tire out and give up.
I was angry, good and angry, because of Israel’s sins.
I struck him hard and turned away in anger,
while he kept at his stubborn, willful ways.
When I looked again and saw what he was doing,
I decided to heal him, lead him, and comfort him,
creating a new language of praise for the mourners.
Peace to the far-off, peace to the near-at-hand,” says God—
“and yes, I will heal them.
But the wicked are storm-battered seas
that can’t quiet down.
The waves stir up garbage and mud.
There’s no peace,” God says, “for the wicked.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Read: Matthew 16:1–4
Some Bad Yeast
Some Pharisees and Sadducees were on him again, pressing him to prove himself to them. He told them, “You have a saying that goes, ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning.’ You find it easy enough to forecast the weather—why can’t you read the signs of the times? An evil and wanton generation is always wanting signs and wonders. The only sign you’ll get is the Jonah sign.” Then he turned on his heel and walked away.
INSIGHT:
After the religious leaders’ ironic demand for a sign of Jesus’s identity (Matt. 16:1–4), Jesus takes His men north to Caesarea Philippi where He asks two questions. The first, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” (v. 13) was a survey of the prevailing opinions held by the common people about His identity. The answers were complimentary, but all fell short of the truth. The second question, “Who do you say I am?” received Peter’s ringing response, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (vv. 15–16). With God’s help, Peter rightly assessed all the miraculous signs Jesus had done in their first eighteen months together and affirmed that Jesus was God in human flesh.
Signs and Feelings
By Tim Gustafson
Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. Psalm 119:105
A young man I know has a habit of asking God for signs. That’s not necessarily bad, but his prayers tend to seek confirmation of his feelings. For instance, he’ll pray, “God, if You want me to do X, then You please do Y, and I’ll know it’s okay.”
This has created a dilemma. Because of the way he prays and the way he thinks God is answering, he feels that he should get back with his ex-girlfriend. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she feels strongly that God doesn’t want that.
The best way to know God’s will is to say, “I will” to God.
The religious leaders of Jesus’s day demanded a sign from Him to prove the validity of His claims (Matt. 16:1). They weren’t seeking God’s guidance; they were challenging His divine authority. Jesus replied, “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign” (v. 4). The Lord’s strong response wasn’t a blanket statement to prevent anyone from seeking God’s guidance. Rather, Jesus was accusing them of ignoring the clear prophecies in Scripture that indicated He was the Messiah.
God wants us to seek His guidance in prayer (James 1:5). He also gives us the guidance of the Spirit (John 14:26) and His Word (Ps. 119:105). He provides us with mentors and wise leaders. And He’s given us the example of Jesus Himself.
It’s wise to ask God for clear direction, but He may not always give it in ways that we expect or want. Perhaps the larger point of prayer is that we learn more about God’s nature and develop a relationship with our Father.
Lord, it is impossible for us to comprehend Your nature, and yet You welcome us to approach You in prayer. And so we seek Your guidance today and ask to know You in ways we haven’t seen before.
The best way to know God’s will is to say, “I will” to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Sacred Service
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ… —Colossians 1:24
The Christian worker has to be a sacred “go-between.” He must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. I am not referring to the strength of one individual’s personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through every aspect of the worker’s life. When we preach the historical facts of the life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred. God uses these words, on the basis of His redemption, to create something in those who listen which otherwise could never have been created. If we simply preach the effects of redemption in the human life instead of the revealed, divine truth regarding Jesus Himself, the result is not new birth in those who listen. The result is a refined religious lifestyle, and the Spirit of God cannot witness to it because such preaching is in a realm other than His. We must make sure that we are living in such harmony with God that as we proclaim His truth He can create in others those things which He alone can do.
When we say, “What a wonderful personality, what a fascinating person, and what wonderful insight!” then what opportunity does the gospel of God have through all of that? It cannot get through, because the attraction is to the messenger and not the message. If a person attracts through his personality, that becomes his appeal. If, however, he is identified with the Lord Himself, then the appeal becomes what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men, yet Jesus says we are to lift up only Him (see John 12:32).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ. My Utmost for His Highest, November 25, 848 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 09, 2016
Safe in an Unsafe World - #7783
After watching the World Trade Center as part of my skyline for many years, it hit really hard that awful September 11th to see those towers come crashing down and thousands of lives with them. The day after the first attack on the Trade Center, which was back in 1993, I was greeted by a TV crew as I got off a flight from Newark. Of all things, they asked me as a New Yorker how I felt after that bombing. And I could only think of one word, "vulnerable." That was my answer.
Well, since the events of that September 11th, and the years since then, and all of the terrorism that has spread Iike a cancer, I think a lot of us are feeling more and more vulnerable all the time. Look, we've watched everyday people like us, doing things we do back on September 11th, passengers on a jetliner, folks at their jobs – suddenly wiped out en masse. We're uncertain about what a new kind of war might mean, where the danger might pop up next, and what's going to happen economically. And some of us are trying to help our children understand this crazy world that we don't even understand. We all feel vulnerable. It's as if some of our own sense of personal security and safety started to come crashing down with those towers.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Safe in an Unsafe World."
Even without the constantly disturbing events in the news, we all know the feeling of having things that we counted on suddenly crashing down – a person we love, our job, the collapse of a marriage, a bad report from the doctor. In times like these, we're hungry for something we can anchor to, for something to sustain us when the bad news is more than we can bear, for something that will make us feel really safe.
When our President addressed the nation on this generation's "day of infamy" that September 11th, he alluded to the one source of comfort and hope in moments like these. He quoted from that treasured 23rd Psalm in the Bible – actually, Psalm 23:4, our word for today from the Word of God. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me."
The Bible holds out to you and me a security that can keep you safe in life's deepest valleys – even the valley of the shadow of death. That security is a relationship. It's a person. "You are with me, Lord" the psalmist said. All our lives we've been looking for one "unloseable" love. And there really is one. It's the love of the One who made you, the One you will meet on the other side of your last heartbeat, the One whose love caused Him to literally lay down His life for you.
In our vulnerable moments, our moments that are more than you can handle alone, those moments when you've gone seeking God, maybe you've realized that there's something that is separating you from Him. The Bible says we're right. The Bible says, "Your sins have separated you from your God" (Isaiah 59:2). But Jesus came to remove that wall between you and God – the only way it could be removed – by Jesus dying to pay the death penalty for you and for me, hijacking a life that God was supposed to run and we took it instead.
Either you have this life-saving relationship with Jesus or you don't. It all depends on whether there's been a time when you grabbed the outstretched hand of Jesus like a person trapped in the wreckage would grab the hand of his rescuer. If you are ready for the kind of security, the safety that only Jesus Christ can offer, if you're ready to begin this anchor relationship with the man who died for you, whose love you will never lose, would you tell Him that right where you are? "Jesus, you died for me. My life is yours from this day on."
I want you to know for sure that you have that anchor, that security from this day on. So I'd invite you to go where some information is that will really help that happen. It's our website ANewStory.com. I'd love for you to visit there as soon as you can today.
My prayer is that you'll be able to go to sleep tonight knowing you are in the safest place in the universe – the arms of Jesus Christ – and that you'll be able to say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil – for You are with me."