Max Lucado Daily: OUR BATTLE STRATEGY
Today’s problem is not necessarily tomorrow’s problem. Don’t incarcerate yourself by assuming it is. Resist self-labeling. I’m just a worrier. Gossip is my weakness. My dad was a drinker, and I guess I’ll carry on the tradition. Stop that! These words create alliances with the Devil. They grant him access to your spirit. Turn a deaf ear to the old voices and make some new choices.
The Psalmist said, “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yes, I have a good inheritance” (Psalm 16:6). Live out of your inheritance, not your circumstance. God has already promised a victory. Paul urged us to stand “against the wiles of the Devil” (Ephesians 6:11). He is not passive or fair. Satan is active and deceptive; he has designs and strategies. Consequently we need a strategy as well. And God gives us one– let God do the fighting for us!
From God is With You Every Day
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Hosea 8
Altars for Sinning
“Blow the trumpet! Sound the alarm!
Vultures are circling over God’s people
Who have broken my covenant
and defied my revelation.
Predictably, Israel cries out, ‘My God! We know you!’
But they don’t act like it.
Israel will have nothing to do with what’s good,
and now the enemy is after them.
4-10 “They crown kings, but without asking me.
They set up princes but don’t let me in on it.
Instead, they make idols, using silver and gold,
idols that will be their ruin.
Throw that gold calf-god on the trash heap, Samaria!
I’m seething with anger against that rubbish!
How long before they shape up?
And they’re Israelites!
A sculptor made that thing—
it’s not God.
That Samaritan calf
will be broken to bits.
Look at them! Planting wind-seeds,
they’ll harvest tornadoes.
Wheat with no head
produces no flour.
And even if it did,
strangers would gulp it down.
Israel is swallowed up and spit out.
Among the pagans they’re a piece of junk.
They trotted off to Assyria:
Why, even wild donkeys stick to their own kind,
but donkey-Ephraim goes out and pays to get lovers.
Now, because of their whoring life among the pagans,
I’m going to gather them together and confront them.
They’re going to reap the consequences soon,
feel what it’s like to be oppressed by the big king.
11-14 “Ephraim has built a lot of altars,
and then uses them for sinning.
Can you believe it? Altars for sinning!
I write out my revelation for them in detail
and they pretend they can’t read it.
They offer sacrifices to me
and then they feast on the meat.
God is not pleased!
I’m fed up—I’ll keep remembering their guilt.
I’ll punish their sins
and send them back to Egypt.
Israel has forgotten his Maker
and gotten busy making palaces.
Judah has gone in for a lot of fortress cities.
I’m sending fire on their cities
to burn down their fortifications.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Read: 1 Peter 1:17–23
You call out to God for help and he helps—he’s a good Father that way. But don’t forget, he’s also a responsible Father, and won’t let you get by with sloppy living.
18-21 Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ’s sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. It’s because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God.
22-25 Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God’s living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! That’s why the prophet said,
The old life is a grass life,
its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers;
Grass dries up, flowers droop,
God’s Word goes on and on forever.
This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.
INSIGHT:
In today’s reading Peter tells his readers that Christ has redeemed them from an empty way of life. In the original language, the word translated “redeemed” (v. 18) means “to set free.” It is often used when talking about slaves who have been liberated from their bondage. They had been set free from the bondage of a futile and useless way of life that has been handed down to them from their ancestors. And this redeeming love of Christ was present even before sin entered the equation (vv. 18-20). Have you ever thought about the fact that Christ loves you knowing everything about you, even your sin? How does it make you feel that you have been or can be set free from the slavery of sin and death?
What Are You Worth?
By Bill Crowder
It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed . . . but with the precious blood of Christ. 1 Peter 1:18–19
There is a story that in 75 bc a young Roman nobleman named Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates and held for ransom. When they demanded 20 talents of silver in ransom (about $600,000 today), Caesar laughed and said they obviously had no idea who he was. He insisted they raise the ransom to 50 talents! Why? Because he believed he was worth far more than 20 talents.
What a difference we see between Caesar’s arrogant measure of his own worth and the value God places on each of us. Our worth is not measured in terms of monetary value but by what our heavenly Father has done on our behalf.
Our worth is measured by what God paid to rescue us.
What ransom did He pay to save us? Through the death of His only Son on the cross, the Father paid the price to rescue us from our sin. “It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18–19).
God loved us so much that He gave up His Son to die on the cross and rise from the dead to ransom and rescue us. That is what you are worth to Him.
Father, thank You for the love You have shown to me and for the price You paid for my forgiveness. Help my life to be an ongoing expression of gratitude, for You are the One whose worth is beyond measure.
Our worth is measured by what God paid to rescue us.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
“By the Grace of God I Am What I Am”
By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain… —1 Corinthians 15:10
The way we continually talk about our own inabilities is an insult to our Creator. To complain over our incompetence is to accuse God falsely of having overlooked us. Get into the habit of examining from God’s perspective those things that sound so humble to men. You will be amazed at how unbelievably inappropriate and disrespectful they are to Him. We say things such as, “Oh, I shouldn’t claim to be sanctified; I’m not a saint.” But to say that before God means, “No, Lord, it is impossible for You to save and sanctify me; there are opportunities I have not had and so many imperfections in my brain and body; no, Lord, it isn’t possible.” That may sound wonderfully humble to others, but before God it is an attitude of defiance.
Conversely, the things that sound humble before God may sound exactly the opposite to people. To say, “Thank God, I know I am saved and sanctified,” is in God’s eyes the purest expression of humility. It means you have so completely surrendered yourself to God that you know He is true. Never worry about whether what you say sounds humble before others or not. But always be humble before God, and allow Him to be your all in all.
There is only one relationship that really matters, and that is your personal relationship to your personal Redeemer and Lord. If you maintain that at all costs, letting everything else go, God will fulfill His purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purposes, and yours may be that life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is an easy thing to argue from precedent because it makes everything simple, but it is a risky thing to do. Give God “elbow room”; let Him come into His universe as He pleases. If we confine God in His working to religious people or to certain ways, we place ourselves on an equality with God. Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Room in Your Lifeboat - #7798
When I'm in a new city, I don't usually make visiting a local cemetery one of my sightseeing priorities. But I did in a ministry trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia. I visited the cemetery where 121 passengers of the doomed Titanic are buried; many with their names still unknown.
Not long after the midnight radio transmission, "Have struck iceberg," three telegraph cable repair ships were dispatched from Halifax to make the 500-mile trip to the collision site to pick up the bodies of the victims. In a way, the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic is a tale of two ships. One was the Carpathia, the ship that rescued hundreds who had made it into lifeboats, and then took them into New York Harbor. The Carpathia carried a ship full of rescued people, but not the Mackay Bennett. No, that was the first funeral ship to arrive at the scene of the sinking. All they found was 328 people, floating in their lifejackets, frozen to death. The first one they found was a little two-year-old boy, floating face up. They were devastated.
By the time they sailed into Halifax Harbor with every church bell in town tolling, there were three long rows of bodies on their deck – every one a person who did not have to die. See, those lifeboats had been half empty. But as the people in the water cried out for help, the people in the lifeboats just kept rowing away. So one ship carried those who had been rescued, and the other ship carried those no one cared enough to rescue.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Room in Your Lifeboat."
Those people in the water died, not because the Titanic sank; they survived that. But because the people who were already saved did nothing for those who were dying. Dear God, is that us – the already saved, secure in our half-empty lifeboat, doing nothing about the spiritually dying people all around us? We're enjoying the fellowship of the folks already in the lifeboat, singing our lifeboat songs, maybe even making the lifeboat bigger or more comfortable for us. But our coworkers, our fellow-students, our neighbors who don't have a relationship with Jesus, the only one who could forgive their sin, they just go on living and dying without Him.
Our word for today from the Word of God paints a portrait of stark contrast as it describes the destinations of those who were rescued and those who never were. It's in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10. "When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with His powerful angels, He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and the majesty of His power." Think about it! Those are real people, condemned to pay for the sins Jesus already paid for on the cross – some because they didn't take what Jesus died to give them and others because no one ever told them how.
The Bible goes on to describe this as the day when "He comes to be glorified in His holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed." Look, don't you want the people you know, the people who you love to be there? Then whatever has kept you from telling them about Jesus – your fears, your inadequacy, your hang-ups – can they possibly be as important as rescuing someone who's dying?
In a sense, eternity will be a place where the ones someone rescued will sail to one port where there will be celebration and reunion. While those no one rescued will go to another port where there is only death and sorrow.
You've got room in your lifeboat and there's still time. Why don't you spend the rest of your life pulling as many dying people into your lifeboat as you can?