Max Lucado Daily: God Does What He Says He Will Do
Faith is a choice. It is! And Promised Land people risk the choice. When forced to stand at the crossroads of belief and unbelief, they choose belief. They place one determined step after the other on the pathway of faith. Seldom with a skip, usually with a limp. They make a conscious decision to step toward God, to lean into hope, to heed the call of heaven. They press into the promises of God.
Joshua 21:43-45 urges us to do likewise. In fact, one might argue that the central message of the book is this headline: God keeps his promises. Trust him. “Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.”
Don’t miss this! Attention everyone. God keeps his word! God does what he says he will do!
From Glory Days
Hosea 5
They Wouldn’t Recognize God If They Saw Him
“Listen to this, priests!
Attention, people of Israel!
Royal family—all ears!
You’re in charge of justice around here.
But what have you done? Exploited people at Mizpah,
ripped them off on Tabor,
Victimized them at Shittim.
I’m going to punish the lot of you.
3-4 “I know you, Ephraim, inside and out.
Yes, Israel, I see right through you!
Ephraim, you’ve played your sex-and-religion games long enough.
All Israel is thoroughly polluted.
They couldn’t turn to God if they wanted to.
Their evil life is a bad habit.
Every breath they take is a whore’s breath.
They wouldn’t recognize God if they saw me.
5-7 “Bloated by arrogance, big as a house,
they’re a public disgrace,
The lot of them—Israel, Ephraim, Judah—
lurching and weaving down their guilty streets.
When they decide to get their lives together
and go off looking for God once again,
They’ll find it’s too late.
I, God, will be long gone.
They’ve played fast and loose with me for too long,
filling the country with their bastard offspring.
A plague of locusts will
devastate their violated land.
8-9 “Blow the ram’s horn shofar in Gibeah,
the bugle in Ramah!
Signal the invasion of Sin City!
Scare the daylights out of Benjamin!
Ephraim will be left wasted,
a lifeless moonscape.
I’m telling it straight, the unvarnished truth,
to the tribes of Israel.
10 “Israel’s rulers are crooks and thieves,
cheating the people of their land,
And I’m angry, good and angry.
Every inch of their bodies is going to feel my anger.
11-12 “Brutal Ephraim is himself brutalized—
a taste of his own medicine!
He was so determined
to do it his own worthless way.
Therefore I’m pus to Ephraim,
dry rot in the house of Judah.
13 “When Ephraim saw he was sick
and Judah saw his pus-filled sores,
Ephraim went running to Assyria,
went for help to the big king.
But he can’t heal you.
He can’t cure your oozing sores.
14-15 “I’m a grizzly charging Ephraim,
a grizzly with cubs charging Judah.
I’ll rip them to pieces—yes, I will!
No one can stop me now.
I’ll drag them off.
No one can help them.
Then I’ll go back to where I came from
until they come to their senses.
When they finally hit rock bottom,
maybe they’ll come looking for me.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Read: Psalm 92:12–15
But you’ve made me strong as a charging bison,
you’ve honored me with a festive parade.
The sight of my critics going down is still fresh,
the rout of my malicious detractors.
My ears are filled with the sounds of promise:
“Good people will prosper like palm trees,
Grow tall like Lebanon cedars;
transplanted to God’s courtyard,
They’ll grow tall in the presence of God,
lithe and green, virile still in old age.”
15 Such witnesses to upright God!
My Mountain, my huge, holy Mountain!
INSIGHT:
In today’s Scripture, Psalm 92, the psalmist proclaims in verse 12 that the righteous—the faithful—will flourish like a palm tree and grow like the cedars of Lebanon. The palm tree was associated with value—both ornamental and economic—and palm fronds were already being used in worship (Lev. 23:40). The cedars of Lebanon are almost always used in Scripture to illustrate strength, stability, and majesty. At the time this psalm was written, magnificent evergreen (cedar) forests graced the mountains of Lebanon. With low branches and expansive canopies, these trees can reach up to 100 feet tall. The psalmist’s prayer is for the righteous to increase like the cedar and blossom like the palm tree.
The Red Hackle
By David Roper
They will still bear fruit in old age. Psalm 92:14
Several years ago I stumbled across a bit of fishing lore in a second-century ad work by the Greek writer Aelian. “Between Boroca and Thessalonica runs a river called the Astracus, and in it there are fish with spotted skins [trout].” He then describes a “snare for the fish, by which they get the better of them. They fastened crimson red wool round a hook and attached two feathers. Then they would throw their snare, and the fish, attracted by the color, comes up, thinking to get a mouthful” (On the Nature of Animals).
Fishermen still use this lure today. It is called the Red Hackle. First used over 2,200 years ago, it remains a snare for trout by which we “get the better of them.”
As the years add up, God's faithfulness keeps multiplying.
When I read that ancient work I thought: Not all old things are passé—especially people. If through contented and cheerful old age we show others the fullness and deepness of God, we’ll be useful to the end of our days. Old age does not have to focus on declining health, pining over what once was. It can also be full of tranquility and mirth and courage and kindness, the fruit of those who have grown old with God.
“Those who are planted in the house of the Lord . . . shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing” (Ps. 92:13–14 nkjv).
Lord, thank You for Your faithfulness throughout our lives. Help us finish our lives well in service to You and to remember that old age does not mean uselessness.
As the years add up, God’s faithfulness keeps multiplying.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, November 27, 2016
The Consecration of Spiritual Powe
…by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. —Galatians 6:14
If I dwell on the Cross of Christ, I do not simply become inwardly devout and solely interested in my own holiness— I become strongly focused on Jesus Christ’s interests. Our Lord was not a recluse nor a fanatical holy man practicing self-denial. He did not physically cut Himself off from society, but He was inwardly disconnected all the time. He was not aloof, but He lived in another world. In fact, He was so much in the common everyday world that the religious people of His day accused Him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Yet our Lord never allowed anything to interfere with His consecration of spiritual power.
It is not genuine consecration to think that we can refuse to be used of God now in order to store up our spiritual power for later use. That is a hopeless mistake. The Spirit of God has set a great many people free from their sin, yet they are experiencing no fullness in their lives— no true sense of freedom. The kind of religious life we see around the world today is entirely different from the vigorous holiness of the life of Jesus Christ. “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). We are to be in the world but not of it— to be separated internally, not externally (see John 17:16).
We must never allow anything to interfere with the consecration of our spiritual power. Consecration (being dedicated to God’s service) is our part; sanctification (being set apart from sin and being made holy) is God’s part. We must make a deliberate determination to be interested only in what God is interested. The way to make that determination, when faced with a perplexing problem, is to ask yourself, “Is this the kind of thing in which Jesus Christ is interested, or is it something in which the spirit that is diametrically opposed to Jesus is interested?”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The place for the comforter is not that of one who preaches, but of the comrade who says nothing, but prays to God about the matter. The biggest thing you can do for those who are suffering is not to talk platitudes, not to ask questions, but to get into contact with God, and the “greater works” will be done by prayer (see John 14:12–13). Baffled to Fight Better, 56 R