Max Lucado Daily: PRAY BOLDLY
When Martin Luther’s co-worker became ill, the reformer prayed boldly for healing. “I besought the Almighty with great vigor,” he wrote.
As John Wesley was crossing the Atlantic Ocean, contrary winds came up. When he learned the winds were knocking the ship off course, he responded in prayer. “Almighty and everlasting God. . .command these winds and these waves that they obey thee, and take us speedily and safely to the haven whither we would go.”
Boldness in prayer…it’s an uncomfortable thought for many. Storming heaven with prayers? God invited us to pray as such. Scripture says, “so let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need” (Hebrews 4:16 TLB). Dare to pray boldly!
From God is With You Every Day
Jeremiah 17
The Heart Is Hopelessly Dark and Deceitful
1-2 “Judah’s sin is engraved
with a steel chisel,
A steel chisel with a diamond point—
engraved on their granite hearts,
engraved on the stone corners of their altars.
The evidence against them is plain to see:
sex-and-religion altars and sacred sex shrines
Anywhere there’s a grove of trees,
anywhere there’s an available hill.
3-4 “I’ll use your mountains as roadside stands
for giving away everything you have.
All your ‘things’ will serve as reparations
for your sins all over the country.
You’ll lose your gift of land,
The inheritance I gave you.
I’ll make you slaves of your enemies
in a far-off and strange land.
My anger is hot and blazing and fierce,
and no one will put it out.”
5-6 God’s Message:
“Cursed is the strong one
who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
in a land where nothing grows.
7-8 “But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season.
9-10 “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be.”
11 Like a cowbird that cheats by laying its eggs
in another bird’s nest
Is the person who gets rich by cheating.
When the eggs hatch, the deceit is exposed.
What a fool he’ll look like then!
12-13 From early on your Sanctuary was set high,
a throne of glory, exalted!
O God, you’re the hope of Israel.
All who leave you end up as fools,
Deserters with nothing to show for their lives,
who walk off from God, fountain of living waters—
and wind up dead!
14-18 God, pick up the pieces.
Put me back together again.
You are my praise!
Listen to how they talk about me:
“So where’s this ‘Word of God’?
We’d like to see something happen!”
But it wasn’t my idea to call for Doomsday.
I never wanted trouble.
You know what I’ve said.
It’s all out in the open before you.
Don’t add to my troubles.
Give me some relief!
Let those who harass me be harassed, not me.
Let them be disgraced, not me.
Bring down upon them the day of doom.
Lower the boom. Boom!
Keep the Sabbath Day Holy
19-20 God’s Message to me: “Go stand in the People’s Gate, the one used by Judah’s kings as they come and go, and then proceed in turn to all the gates of Jerusalem. Tell them, ‘Listen, you kings of Judah, listen to God’s Message—and all you people who go in and out of these gates, you listen!
21-23 “‘This is God’s Message. Be careful, if you care about your lives, not to desecrate the Sabbath by turning it into just another workday, lugging stuff here and there. Don’t use the Sabbath to do business as usual. Keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors. They never did it, as you know. They paid no attention to what I said and went about their own business, refusing to be guided or instructed by me.
24-26 “‘But now, take seriously what I tell you. Quit desecrating the Sabbath by busily going about your own work, and keep the Sabbath day holy by not doing business as usual. Then kings from the time of David and their officials will continue to ride through these gates on horses or in chariots. The people of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem will continue to pass through them, too. Jerusalem will always be filled with people. People will stream in from all over Judah, from the province of Benjamin, from the Jerusalem suburbs, from foothills and mountains and deserts. They’ll come to worship, bringing all kinds of offerings—animals, grains, incense, expressions of thanks—into the Sanctuary of God.
27 “‘But if you won’t listen to me, won’t keep the Sabbath holy, won’t quit using the Sabbath for doing your own work, busily going in and out of the city gates on your self-important business, then I’ll burn the gates down. In fact, I’ll burn the whole city down, palaces and all, with a fire nobody will be able to put out!’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Read: Psalm 29
A David Psalm
1-2 Bravo, God, bravo!
Gods and all angels shout, “Encore!”
In awe before the glory,
in awe before God’s visible power.
Stand at attention!
Dress your best to honor him!
3 God thunders across the waters,
Brilliant, his voice and his face, streaming brightness—
God, across the flood waters.
4 God’s thunder tympanic,
God’s thunder symphonic.
5 God’s thunder smashes cedars,
God topples the northern cedars.
6 The mountain ranges skip like spring colts,
The high ridges jump like wild kid goats.
7-8 God’s thunder spits fire.
God thunders, the wilderness quakes;
He makes the desert of Kadesh shake.
9 God’s thunder sets the oak trees dancing
A wild dance, whirling; the pelting rain strips their branches.
We fall to our knees—we call out, “Glory!”
10 Above the floodwaters is God’s throne
from which his power flows,
from which he rules the world.
11 God makes his people strong.
God gives his people peace.
INSIGHT:
Psalm 29:3 says, “The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders.” The Lord is called “the God of glory”; therefore, in keeping with God’s character, we should “ascribe to the Lord glory” (v. 1). The appropriate reaction to whatever is genuinely awesome is to be awe-filled. What do you remember as being breathtaking or awesome? What response did it evoke?
Thunder and Lightning
By David Roper
The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. Psalm 29:7
Many years ago a friend and I were fishing a series of beaver ponds when it started to rain. We took cover under a nearby grove of quaking aspen, but the rain continued to fall. So we decided to call it a day and run for the truck. I had just opened the door when lightning struck the aspen grove with a thunderous fireball that stripped leaves and bark off the trees, leaving a few limbs smoldering. And then there was silence.
We were shaken and awed.
Grant me Your peace and the strength to walk through this day.
Lightning flashes and thunder rolls across our Idaho valley. I love it—despite my close call. I love the raw power. Voltage! Percussion! Shock and awe! The earth and everything in it trembles and shakes. And then there is peace.
I love lightning and thunder primarily because they are symbols of God's voice (Job 37:4), speaking with stupendous, irresistible power through His Word. “The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning . . . The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace” (Ps. 29:7, 11). He gives strength to endure, to be patient, to be kind, to sit quietly, to get up and go, to do nothing at all.
May the God of peace be with you.
Calm my spirit in the storms, Lord. Grant me Your peace and the strength to walk through this day.
Faith connects our weakness to God's strength.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Leave Room for God
When it pleased God… —Galatians 1:15
As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him— to give God “elbow room.” We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly—God meets our life “…when it pleased God….”
Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
“I have chosen you” (John 15:16). Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you. My Utmost for His Highest, October 25, 837 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Dressed Up Disobedience - #7838
Our son was a lineman when he played high school football. Which meant our son did a lot of weight lifting, which meant he got stronger. But it also meant a lot of eating, which meant he got bigger. I noticed that all the guys playing line had big muscles and big stomachs. When I commented on that, he said, "Dad, we're proud of that. It's lineman's gut!" Funny, I thought it was lineman's fat. Well, after the season, our son lost thirty pounds and his big stomach was all gone. He told me he was really proud that he had lost all that fat. (That was his word.) Of course, I had to say, "Do you remember when you told me it was lineman's gut?" He said, "Uh, Dad – I think we call that a rationalization."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Dressed Up Disobedience."
That little word game my son was playing with his overweight situation is a game we try to play with something far uglier and far deadlier. We try to put a cover-up name on sin. There's a disturbing example of that in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Samuel 15:20-23. Israel's King Saul has been commanded by God to carry out God's long-standing word to the brutal Amalekites – to destroy all traces of them. Saul comes back from his attack with livestock that he was supposed to have destroyed.
But he's found a way to dress up his disobedience. He says, "But I did obey the Lord." Really? "Saul said. 'I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God.'" Nice try. God's reaction? "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Rebellion is like the sin of divination and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as king."
Now, notice, Saul had disobeyed what God said, but he's wrapping it up in spiritual language. It doesn't cut it with God. The human mind has this devious ability to rationalize, to call fat "lineman's gut", to twist words and logic to fit what I want. Fat by any other name, I would have to tell my son and he ultimately admitted, was still the same thing. Sin by any other name is still sin.
Saul talks about "the Lord's instructions" and things being "devoted to God" and "sacrifices to the Lord". But God calls what Saul is doing "rebellion", "arrogance", and "rejecting the word of the Lord". And God says judgment will fall. Now, you can repackage sin into religious rationalizations, but you cannot fool God. You can come up with rationalizing that's good enough for people, good enough for you, but it's not going to be good enough for God!
Could it be that you've taken what you want and you've quieted your conscience by putting some spiritual name on it? You might be saying, "The Lord is leading me" when the truth is "I want this and I don't want anyone to argue with me." You may be calling it "waiting for the Spirit", but God's calling it laziness. You may call it "love" but God says it's lust or adultery. Your name for it is "conviction", but God calls it stubbornness. You say it's "caring for your family", but God would say it's greed or materialism.
We don't like to deal with our sin. No, we like to disguise it. But if you want to feel clean again inside, if you want to release God's blessings into your life, ask Him, "Lord, where in my life am I calling sin by a nice name? Where am I using religious rhetoric to mask plain old disobedience?" What matters is what God calls what you're doing. If He calls it sin, it's time you called it that, too, and then leave it where it belongs – at the cross of Jesus.
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