Max Lucado Daily: “THANK YOU!”
Paul says in Ephesians 5:20, “Give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” You don’t have to name a child after God, but then again, you could. Or you could draft a letter listing all His blessings or write a song in His honor. You could sponsor an orphan, adopt a child just because God adopted you. The surest path out of a slump is marked by the road sign, “Thank you.”
But what of the disastrous days? Can we be grateful then? Jesus was. “On the night He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took a loaf of bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it.” Not often are the words “betrayed” and “thanks” in the same sentence, much less in the same heart. Anyone can thank God for the light, but Jesus teaches us to thank God for the night!
From You’ll Get Through This
Zechariah 3
Fourth Vision: Joshua’s New Clothes
1-2 Next the Messenger-Angel showed me the high priest Joshua. He was standing before God’s Angel where the Accuser showed up to accuse him. Then God said to the Accuser, “I, God, rebuke you, Accuser! I rebuke you and choose Jerusalem. Surprise! Everything is going up in flames, but I reach in and pull out Jerusalem!”
3-4 Joshua, standing before the angel, was dressed in dirty clothes. The angel spoke to his attendants, “Get him out of those filthy clothes,” and then said to Joshua, “Look, I’ve stripped you of your sin and dressed you up in clean clothes.”
5 I spoke up and said, “How about a clean new turban for his head also?” And they did it—put a clean new turban on his head. Then they finished dressing him, with God’s Angel looking on.
6-7 God’s Angel then charged Joshua, “Orders from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: ‘If you live the way I tell you and remain obedient in my service, then you’ll make the decisions around here and oversee my affairs. And all my attendants standing here will be at your service.
8-9 “‘Careful, High Priest Joshua—both you and your friends sitting here with you, for your friends are in on this, too! Here’s what I’m doing next: I’m introducing my servant Branch. And note this: This stone that I’m placing before Joshua, a single stone with seven eyes’—Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies—‘I’ll engrave with these words: “I’ll strip this land of its filthy sin, all at once, in a single day.”
10 “‘At that time, everyone will get along with one another, with friendly visits across the fence, friendly visits on one another’s porches.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 30, 2017
Read: Luke 13:1–9
Unless You Turn to God
1-5 About that time some people came up and told him about the Galileans Pilate had killed while they were at worship, mixing their blood with the blood of the sacrifices on the altar. Jesus responded, “Do you think those murdered Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans? Not at all. Unless you turn to God, you, too, will die. And those eighteen in Jerusalem the other day, the ones crushed and killed when the Tower of Siloam collapsed and fell on them, do you think they were worse citizens than all other Jerusalemites? Not at all. Unless you turn to God, you, too, will die.”
6-7 Then he told them a story: “A man had an apple tree planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren’t any. He said to his gardener, ‘What’s going on here? For three years now I’ve come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?’
8-9 “The gardener said, ‘Let’s give it another year. I’ll dig around it and fertilize, and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn’t, then chop it down.’”
INSIGHT:
Right before the words of today’s passage, Jesus described how His coming causes division between those who accept Jesus and the new reality He brings and those who reject Him (Luke 12:49–56). Words like these could have led some to interpret tragedies like lives lost in a collapsed tower (13:4) as God’s judgment. But Jesus rejected this way of thinking (v. 5), teaching that we should not condemn others, but instead look at ourselves. The parable of the barren fig tree (vv. 6–9) illustrates that although God is merciful and has given the world extra time to turn to Him (v. 9), a choice to live in Him must be made. That’s the only way to live fruitfully.
How can you, instead of condemning others, focus more deeply on your response to Christ?
Time to Flourish
By Sheridan Voysey
“Sir,” the man replied, “leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it.” Luke 13:8
Last spring I decided to cut down the rose bush by our back door. In the three years we’d lived in our home, it hadn’t produced many flowers, and its ugly, fruitless branches were now creeping in all directions.
But life got busy, and my gardening plan got delayed. It was just as well—only a few weeks later that rose bush burst into bloom like I’d never seen before. Hundreds of big white flowers, rich in perfume, hung over the back door, flowed into our yard, and showered the ground with beautiful petals.
God's patience is good news for all of us.
My rose bush’s revival reminded me of Jesus’s parable of the fig tree in Luke 13:6–9. In Israel, it was customary to give fig trees three years to produce fruit. If they didn’t, they were cut down so the soil could be better used. In Jesus’s story, a gardener asks his boss to give one particular tree a fourth year to produce. In context (vv. 1–5), the parable implies this: The Israelites hadn’t lived as they should, and God could justly judge them. But God is patient and had given extra time for them to turn to Him, be forgiven, and bloom.
God wants all people to flourish and has given extra time so that they can. Whether we are still journeying toward faith or are praying for unbelieving family and friends, His patience is good news for all of us.
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5).
God has given the world extra time to respond to His offer of forgiveness.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 30, 2017
Do It Now!
Agree with your adversary quickly… —Matthew 5:25
In this verse, Jesus Christ laid down a very important principle by saying, “Do what you know you must do— now. Do it quickly. If you don’t, an inevitable process will begin to work ‘till you have paid the last penny’ (Matthew 5:26) in pain, agony, and distress.” God’s laws are unchangeable and there is no escape from them. The teachings of Jesus always penetrate right to the heart of our being.
Wanting to make sure that my adversary gives me all my rights is a natural thing. But Jesus says that it is a matter of inescapable and eternal importance to me that I pay my adversary what I owe him. From our Lord’s standpoint it doesn’t matter whether I am cheated or not, but what does matter is that I don’t cheat someone else. Am I insisting on having my own rights, or am I paying what I owe from Jesus Christ’s standpoint?
Do it quickly— bring yourself to judgment now. In moral and spiritual matters, you must act immediately. If you don’t, the inevitable, relentless process will begin to work. God is determined to have His child as pure, clean, and white as driven snow, and as long as there is disobedience in any point of His teaching, He will allow His Spirit to use whatever process it may take to bring us to obedience. The fact that we insist on proving that we are right is almost always a clear indication that we have some point of disobedience. No wonder the Spirit of God so strongly urges us to stay steadfastly in the light! (see John 3:19-21).
“Agree with your adversary quickly….” Have you suddenly reached a certain place in your relationship with someone, only to find that you have anger in your heart? Confess it quickly— make it right before God. Be reconciled to that person— do it now!
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The vital relationship which the Christian has to the Bible is not that he worships the letter, but that the Holy Spirit makes the words of the Bible spirit and life to him. The Psychology of Redemption, 1066 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 30, 2017
Where You Were Born To Be - #7950
Hey, you could use a good fish story today, right? Once upon a time there were these beautiful fish who lived five miles under the ocean. How do I know? They were the subject of a PBS television special. So this is a for real fish story. Now, because these fish are really striking – I mean they are incredibly colorful – some folks thought they might look good in someone's tropical fish aquarium. So they tried to bring these fish to the surface. They didn't make it. They blew up when they got near the surface! They were designed to live under that pressure at the bottom. Well, no happy ending, except they're going to leave the rest of them where they belong – five miles under the ocean because that's where they were created to be!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Where You Were Born To Be."
You know, it really works this way in all of God's creation. There's an environment that things and people were created to be in, and things really work when they're in that place. They really don't work very well when they're not where they were designed to be. Well, thankfully, God makes very clear the environment you and I were created for. So we don't have to waste our lives searching for it, or just waste our lives. In fact, probably the single most important question you have to answer while we're on earth; you know what it is - Why am I here?
God answers that question in six simple, but life-changing words in His book, the Bible. Here's our word for today from the Word of God. It's from Colossians 1:16. Speaking about Jesus, it says, "All things were" and here are the six words, "created by Him and for Him." Look, try putting your name in that Biblical statement. Here's your name "_____ (right there, okay?) was created by Jesus and for Jesus."
Just like those fish were created to be in the pressure of that deep sea environment, just like the earth was created to be in an orbit around the sun, you were created for Jesus, you were created by Jesus for a relationship with Jesus, where you live for Jesus. When you have this personal relationship with Him, you're finally where you were born to be.
Problem: We don't live for the One who gave us our life. We live for ourselves. Again, in God's own words, "All of us have wandered away like sheep; each of us has turned to our own way" (Isaiah 53:6). The Bible has a word for this rebellion of ours – sin; middle letter – I. And it says that our sin separates us from the One we were made by and made for. If we die with that sin-wall there, it's going to be there forever.
When those deep-sea fish are outside the environment they were made to live in, they eventually die, and so do we. And some of that dying happens even now as we keep looking for love in places that don't deliver it, looking for some inner peace, some fulfillment in achievements and relationships and experiences that can't possibly give it to us. Because we're not where we were born to be - knowing Jesus, living for the One who gave us our life and who gave His life for us.
That's the only way we could ever have a chance to get into the orbit we were created for. All those sins of ours have hell as their penalty – a penalty you and I deserved to pay. A penalty that God's Son paid in our place when He died on the cross. Whether or not you ever experience why you're here, whether or not you ever see heaven depends totally on what you do with what Jesus did for you. His call to you is to put your total trust in Him to be the rescuer from your sin. The moment you do that, the relationship you were born for becomes yours forever.
If you've wondered why life isn't delivering – why it isn't working, if you want to experience the peace and the wholeness that only a relationship with Jesus can give you, I hope you'll tell Him right now that you want Him to come into your life. And then I hope you'll pay a visit to our website as soon as you can, because there is what you need for this journey into a relationship with Jesus; to be sure you belong to Him. It's called ANewStory.com, and it's where your new story can begin.
All those years that you've been away from the One that your heart's been searching for, man, isn't it time to experience the relationship you were made for, and to finally be where you were born to be.
From my daily reading of the bible, Our Daily Bread Devotionals, My Utmost for His Highest and Ron Hutchcraft "A Word with You" and occasionally others.
Friday, June 30, 2017
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Zechariah 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GIVE THANKS
Some things just weren’t made to coexist. Long-tailed cats and rocking chairs? Bulls in a china shop? Not a good idea. Blessings and bitterness? That mixture doesn’t go over well with God. Combine heavenly kindness with earthly ingratitude and expect a sour concoction. Perhaps you’ve sampled it. Gratitude doesn’t come naturally. Self-pity does. Bellyaches do. Grumbles and mumbles—no one has to remind us to offer them. Yet they don’t mix well with the kindness we’ve been given.
Gratitude gets us through the hard stuff. To reflect on your blessings is to rehearse God’s accomplishments. To rehearse His accomplishments is to discover His heart. Gratitude always leaves us looking at God and away from dread. So practice gratitude! As Ephesians 5:20 puts it, “Give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
From You’ll Get Through This
Zechariah 2
Third Vision: The Man with the Tape Measure
1-5 I looked up and was surprised to see
a man holding a tape measure in his hand.
I said, “What are you up to?”
“I’m on my way,” he said, “to survey Jerusalem,
to measure its width and length.”
Just then the Messenger-Angel on his way out
met another angel coming in and said,
“Run! Tell the Surveyor, ‘Jerusalem will burst its walls—
bursting with people, bursting with animals.
And I’ll be right there with her’—God’s Decree—‘a wall of fire
around unwalled Jerusalem and a radiant presence within.’”
6-7 “Up on your feet! Get out of there—and now!” God says so.
“Return from your far exile.
I scattered you to the four winds.” God’s Decree.
“Escape from Babylon, Zion, and come home—now!”
8-9 God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the One of Glory who sent me on my mission, commenting on the godless nations who stripped you and left you homeless, said, “Anyone who hits you, hits me—bloodies my nose, blackens my eye. Yes, and at the right time I’ll give the signal and they’ll be stripped and thrown out by their own servants.” Then you’ll know for sure that God-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me on this mission.
10 “Shout and celebrate, Daughter of Zion!
I’m on my way. I’m moving into your neighborhood!”
God’s Decree.
11-12 Many godless nations will be linked up with God at that time. (“They will become my family! I’ll live in their homes!”) And then you’ll know for sure that God-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me on this mission. God will reclaim his Judah inheritance in the Holy Land. He’ll again make clear that Jerusalem is his choice.
13 Quiet, everyone! Shh! Silence before God. Something’s afoot in his holy house. He’s on the move!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Read: James 2:14–26
Faith in Action
14-17 Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
18 I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.”
Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.
19-20 Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?
21-24 Wasn’t our ancestor Abraham “made right with God by works” when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn’t it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works? That the works are “works of faith”? The full meaning of “believe” in the Scripture sentence, “Abraham believed God and was set right with God,” includes his action. It’s that mesh of believing and acting that got Abraham named “God’s friend.” Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?
25-26 The same with Rahab, the Jericho harlot. Wasn’t her action in hiding God’s spies and helping them escape—that seamless unity of believing and doing—what counted with God? The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.
INSIGHT:
Good works are the byproduct of our faith. James deals with the evidence essential to show the world that our faith is genuine. He wrote, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds” (2:18). Authentic trust in God will always manifest itself in loving and caring for others.
How can you demonstrate your faith in Christ to someone today?
Faith in Action
By Amy Boucher Pye
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. James 2:18
As a friend drove to the grocery store, she noticed a woman walking along the side of the road and felt she should turn the car around and offer her a ride. When she did, she was saddened to hear that the woman didn’t have money for the bus so was walking home many miles in the hot and humid weather. Not only was she making the long journey home, but she had also walked several hours that morning to arrive at work by 4 a.m.
By offering a ride, my friend put into practice in a modern setting James’s instruction for Christians to live out their faith with their deeds: “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (v. 17). He was concerned that the church take care of the widows and the orphans (James 1:27), and he also wanted them to rely not on empty words but to act on their faith with deeds of love.
Lord, may I never forget the sacrifice that gives me life.
We are saved by faith, not works, but we live out our faith by loving others and caring for their needs. May we, like my friend who offered the ride, keep our eyes open for those who might need our help as we walk together in this journey of life.
Lord Jesus Christ, You did the ultimate deed by dying on the cross for me. May I never forget the sacrifice that gives me life.
We live out our faith through our good deeds.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, June 29, 2017
The Strictest Discipline
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. —Matthew 5:30
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that “if your right hand causes you to sin” in your walk with Him, then it is better to “cut it off.” There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then “cut it off.” The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.
When God changes you through regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual rebirth, your life initially has the characteristic of being maimed. There are a hundred and one things that you dare not do— things that would be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the unspiritual people around you will say, “What’s so wrong with doing that? How absurd you are!” There has never yet been a saint who has not lived a maimed life initially. Yet it is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God’s sight than to appear lovely to man’s eyes but lame to God’s. At first, Jesus Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see that you don’t use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life initially, but in Matthew 5:48 Jesus gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life— “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
An intellectual conception of God may be found in a bad vicious character. The knowledge and vision of God is dependent entirely on a pure heart. Character determines the revelation of God to the individual. The pure in heart see God. Biblical Ethics, 125 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, June 29, 2017
When You Get Away From Jesus - #7949
If you've got a tie that's gone out of style, hang onto it. It will probably be back in style eventually and you can be cool again. In fact, a lot of clothes are in, then out, then eventually back in again. But it's not just clothes - it can happen to toys, too. Like that classic toy - the yo-yo! They were popular when I was a kid! But I heard that yo-yo's, you know, have made a comeback in the past. In this age of computers and high-tech video games, you know what? Kids are still interested in that little round toy at the end of the string. It's great. And you learn the same old tricks: "walk the dog" and "around the world". I feel like I'm in a time warp! I never could master all that fancy stuff. But there was always one thing I could count on with my trusty yo-yo. When it got to the end of the string, it always started coming back to me! Unless, of course, it wasn't attached; which case it kept on going.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You Get Away From Jesus."
That yo-yo has something important to teach us about the most important relationship in our lives - our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. More about the yo-yo in just a moment.
First, our word for today from the Word of God. It comes from Luke 15:17-18 and right out of the story of the Prodigal Son. You know, he was the young man who got his inheritance from his dad while his dad was still alive and took off to party with it...until he partied it all away and found himself literally living with the pigs. Here's what the Bible says, "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father.'"
Did this boy ever stop being that man's son? No. Did he get away from his father who loved him? Yes. Could he ultimately stay away from his father? No. He remembered what life with his father was like, and he returned home. Maybe you're in that picture right now.
Do you have a personal relationship with God as your Heavenly Father? If you have put your trust in Jesus to be your personal Rescuer from your sin, the answer to that is yes. Now, once you belong to God, can you get away from Him? Yes, just like the son in this story. Can you ultimately stay away from Him? Not if you really belong to Him.
1 John 5:13 says, "...to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." Not feel like you have, not hope you have it - you know that you're going to heaven because of what Jesus did on the cross. But what about all those people who claim to know Jesus and they don't show many signs of it in the way they live? Did they have Jesus and then lose Him? Listen to the Father's words in 1 John 3:9, "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he can't go on sinning, because he has been born of God."
Notice, he cannot go on sinning. If that professing Christian keeps on making a practice of sinning, it's a continual process, they don't lose their God-relationship - they show they never had it! Which brings us back to that yo-yo. When a yo-yo gets to the end of the string, it starts coming back unless it's not attached.
If you really know Jesus, you can only get so far without starting to come back to Him. Unless you're not really attached to Him. In which case, you'll keep on going. Maybe you're away from your Savior right now. Don't you miss Him? The greatest peace and the greatest love you've ever experienced in your life was when you were close to Jesus. And now, you're feeling hollow inside, guilty and lost.
But like the loving father with his prodigal son, Jesus is waiting to welcome you back with open arms. If you really know Him, you'll miss Him and you'd like to be home in His love once more. You've been away long enough haven't you?
Today is your day to come back to the One who, through it all, has never stopped loving you...or never will.
Some things just weren’t made to coexist. Long-tailed cats and rocking chairs? Bulls in a china shop? Not a good idea. Blessings and bitterness? That mixture doesn’t go over well with God. Combine heavenly kindness with earthly ingratitude and expect a sour concoction. Perhaps you’ve sampled it. Gratitude doesn’t come naturally. Self-pity does. Bellyaches do. Grumbles and mumbles—no one has to remind us to offer them. Yet they don’t mix well with the kindness we’ve been given.
Gratitude gets us through the hard stuff. To reflect on your blessings is to rehearse God’s accomplishments. To rehearse His accomplishments is to discover His heart. Gratitude always leaves us looking at God and away from dread. So practice gratitude! As Ephesians 5:20 puts it, “Give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
From You’ll Get Through This
Zechariah 2
Third Vision: The Man with the Tape Measure
1-5 I looked up and was surprised to see
a man holding a tape measure in his hand.
I said, “What are you up to?”
“I’m on my way,” he said, “to survey Jerusalem,
to measure its width and length.”
Just then the Messenger-Angel on his way out
met another angel coming in and said,
“Run! Tell the Surveyor, ‘Jerusalem will burst its walls—
bursting with people, bursting with animals.
And I’ll be right there with her’—God’s Decree—‘a wall of fire
around unwalled Jerusalem and a radiant presence within.’”
6-7 “Up on your feet! Get out of there—and now!” God says so.
“Return from your far exile.
I scattered you to the four winds.” God’s Decree.
“Escape from Babylon, Zion, and come home—now!”
8-9 God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the One of Glory who sent me on my mission, commenting on the godless nations who stripped you and left you homeless, said, “Anyone who hits you, hits me—bloodies my nose, blackens my eye. Yes, and at the right time I’ll give the signal and they’ll be stripped and thrown out by their own servants.” Then you’ll know for sure that God-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me on this mission.
10 “Shout and celebrate, Daughter of Zion!
I’m on my way. I’m moving into your neighborhood!”
God’s Decree.
11-12 Many godless nations will be linked up with God at that time. (“They will become my family! I’ll live in their homes!”) And then you’ll know for sure that God-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me on this mission. God will reclaim his Judah inheritance in the Holy Land. He’ll again make clear that Jerusalem is his choice.
13 Quiet, everyone! Shh! Silence before God. Something’s afoot in his holy house. He’s on the move!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Read: James 2:14–26
Faith in Action
14-17 Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
18 I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.”
Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.
19-20 Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?
21-24 Wasn’t our ancestor Abraham “made right with God by works” when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn’t it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works? That the works are “works of faith”? The full meaning of “believe” in the Scripture sentence, “Abraham believed God and was set right with God,” includes his action. It’s that mesh of believing and acting that got Abraham named “God’s friend.” Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?
25-26 The same with Rahab, the Jericho harlot. Wasn’t her action in hiding God’s spies and helping them escape—that seamless unity of believing and doing—what counted with God? The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.
INSIGHT:
Good works are the byproduct of our faith. James deals with the evidence essential to show the world that our faith is genuine. He wrote, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds” (2:18). Authentic trust in God will always manifest itself in loving and caring for others.
How can you demonstrate your faith in Christ to someone today?
Faith in Action
By Amy Boucher Pye
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. James 2:18
As a friend drove to the grocery store, she noticed a woman walking along the side of the road and felt she should turn the car around and offer her a ride. When she did, she was saddened to hear that the woman didn’t have money for the bus so was walking home many miles in the hot and humid weather. Not only was she making the long journey home, but she had also walked several hours that morning to arrive at work by 4 a.m.
By offering a ride, my friend put into practice in a modern setting James’s instruction for Christians to live out their faith with their deeds: “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (v. 17). He was concerned that the church take care of the widows and the orphans (James 1:27), and he also wanted them to rely not on empty words but to act on their faith with deeds of love.
Lord, may I never forget the sacrifice that gives me life.
We are saved by faith, not works, but we live out our faith by loving others and caring for their needs. May we, like my friend who offered the ride, keep our eyes open for those who might need our help as we walk together in this journey of life.
Lord Jesus Christ, You did the ultimate deed by dying on the cross for me. May I never forget the sacrifice that gives me life.
We live out our faith through our good deeds.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, June 29, 2017
The Strictest Discipline
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. —Matthew 5:30
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that “if your right hand causes you to sin” in your walk with Him, then it is better to “cut it off.” There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then “cut it off.” The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.
When God changes you through regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual rebirth, your life initially has the characteristic of being maimed. There are a hundred and one things that you dare not do— things that would be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the unspiritual people around you will say, “What’s so wrong with doing that? How absurd you are!” There has never yet been a saint who has not lived a maimed life initially. Yet it is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God’s sight than to appear lovely to man’s eyes but lame to God’s. At first, Jesus Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see that you don’t use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life initially, but in Matthew 5:48 Jesus gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life— “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
An intellectual conception of God may be found in a bad vicious character. The knowledge and vision of God is dependent entirely on a pure heart. Character determines the revelation of God to the individual. The pure in heart see God. Biblical Ethics, 125 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, June 29, 2017
When You Get Away From Jesus - #7949
If you've got a tie that's gone out of style, hang onto it. It will probably be back in style eventually and you can be cool again. In fact, a lot of clothes are in, then out, then eventually back in again. But it's not just clothes - it can happen to toys, too. Like that classic toy - the yo-yo! They were popular when I was a kid! But I heard that yo-yo's, you know, have made a comeback in the past. In this age of computers and high-tech video games, you know what? Kids are still interested in that little round toy at the end of the string. It's great. And you learn the same old tricks: "walk the dog" and "around the world". I feel like I'm in a time warp! I never could master all that fancy stuff. But there was always one thing I could count on with my trusty yo-yo. When it got to the end of the string, it always started coming back to me! Unless, of course, it wasn't attached; which case it kept on going.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You Get Away From Jesus."
That yo-yo has something important to teach us about the most important relationship in our lives - our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. More about the yo-yo in just a moment.
First, our word for today from the Word of God. It comes from Luke 15:17-18 and right out of the story of the Prodigal Son. You know, he was the young man who got his inheritance from his dad while his dad was still alive and took off to party with it...until he partied it all away and found himself literally living with the pigs. Here's what the Bible says, "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father.'"
Did this boy ever stop being that man's son? No. Did he get away from his father who loved him? Yes. Could he ultimately stay away from his father? No. He remembered what life with his father was like, and he returned home. Maybe you're in that picture right now.
Do you have a personal relationship with God as your Heavenly Father? If you have put your trust in Jesus to be your personal Rescuer from your sin, the answer to that is yes. Now, once you belong to God, can you get away from Him? Yes, just like the son in this story. Can you ultimately stay away from Him? Not if you really belong to Him.
1 John 5:13 says, "...to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life." Not feel like you have, not hope you have it - you know that you're going to heaven because of what Jesus did on the cross. But what about all those people who claim to know Jesus and they don't show many signs of it in the way they live? Did they have Jesus and then lose Him? Listen to the Father's words in 1 John 3:9, "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he can't go on sinning, because he has been born of God."
Notice, he cannot go on sinning. If that professing Christian keeps on making a practice of sinning, it's a continual process, they don't lose their God-relationship - they show they never had it! Which brings us back to that yo-yo. When a yo-yo gets to the end of the string, it starts coming back unless it's not attached.
If you really know Jesus, you can only get so far without starting to come back to Him. Unless you're not really attached to Him. In which case, you'll keep on going. Maybe you're away from your Savior right now. Don't you miss Him? The greatest peace and the greatest love you've ever experienced in your life was when you were close to Jesus. And now, you're feeling hollow inside, guilty and lost.
But like the loving father with his prodigal son, Jesus is waiting to welcome you back with open arms. If you really know Him, you'll miss Him and you'd like to be home in His love once more. You've been away long enough haven't you?
Today is your day to come back to the One who, through it all, has never stopped loving you...or never will.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Zechariah 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: LET GOD DEFINE GOOD
Nothing in the Bible would cause us to call a famine good or a heart attack good or a terrorist attack good. These are terrible calamities, born out of a fallen earth. Yet every message in the Bible compels us to believe that God will mix them with other ingredients, and bring good out of them. But we must let God define good. Our definition includes health, comfort, and recognition. His definition? In the case of His Son, Jesus Christ, the good life consisted of struggles, storms, and death. But God worked it all together for the greatest of good: His glory and our salvation.
At some point we all stand at this intersection. Is God good when the outcome is not? Do you want to know heaven’s clearest answer to the question of suffering? Take a look at Jesus!
From You’ll Get Through This
Zechariah 1
1-4 In the eighth month of the second year in the reign of Darius, God’s Message came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, son of Iddo: “God was very angry with your ancestors. So give to the people this Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: ‘Come back to me and I’ll come back to you. Don’t be like your parents. The old-time prophets called out to them, “A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: Leave your evil life. Quit your evil practices.” But they ignored everything I said to them, stubbornly refused to listen.’
5-6 “And where are your ancestors now? Dead and buried. And the prophets who preached to them? Also dead and buried. But the Message that my servants the prophets spoke, that isn’t dead and buried. That Message did its work on your ancestors, did it not? It woke them up and they came back, saying, ‘He did what he said he would do, sure enough. We didn’t get by with a thing.’”
First Vision: Four Riders
7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month in the second year of the reign of Darius, the Message of God was given to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:
8 One night I looked out and saw a man astride a red horse. He was in the shadows in a grove of birches. Behind him were more horses—a red, a chestnut, and a white.
9 I said, “Sir, what are these horses doing here? What’s the meaning of this?”
The Angel-Messenger said, “Let me show you.”
10 Then the rider in the birch grove spoke up, “These are the riders that God sent to check things out on earth.”
11 They reported their findings to the Angel of God in the birch grove: “We have looked over the whole earth and all is well. Everything’s under control.”
12 The Angel of God reported back, “O God-of-the-Angel-Armies, how long are you going to stay angry with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah? When are you going to let up? Isn’t seventy years long enough?”
13-15 God reassured the Angel-Messenger—good words, comforting words—who then addressed me: “Tell them this. Tell them that God-of-the-Angel-Armies has spoken. This is God’s Message: ‘I care deeply for Jerusalem and Zion. I feel very possessive of them. But I’m thoroughly angry with the godless nations that act as if they own the whole world. I was only moderately angry earlier, but now they’ve gone too far. I’m going into action.
16-17 “‘I’ve come back to Jerusalem, but with compassion this time.’
This is God speaking.
‘I’ll see to it that my Temple is rebuilt.’
A Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
‘The rebuilding operation is already staked out.’
Say it again—a Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies:
‘My cities will prosper again,
God will comfort Zion again,
Jerusalem will be back in my favor again.’”
Second Vision: Four Horns and Four Blacksmiths
18 I looked up, and was surprised by another vision: four horns!
19 I asked the Messenger-Angel, “And what’s the meaning of this?”
He said, “These are the powers that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem abroad.”
20 Then God expanded the vision to include four blacksmiths.
21 I asked, “And what are these all about?”
He said, “Since the ‘horns’ scattered Judah so badly that no one had any hope left, these blacksmiths have arrived to combat the horns. They’ll dehorn the godless nations who used their horns to scatter Judah to the four winds.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Read: Romans 7:14–25
I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.
17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
24 I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
INSIGHT:
The war between the good we want to do and the bad we end up doing is a struggle for all Christ-followers. Paul places this tension as being between his “inner man” (his renewed heart and Holy Spirit-guided conscience) and the “flesh” (the fallen nature that still is drawn to sin). The good news is that someday we will be renewed in mind and body—free from the temptation to sin and the impact of our sinful choices.
Unfinished Works
By Amy Peterson
Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:24–25
At his death, the great artist Michelangelo left many unfinished projects. But four of his sculptures were never meant to be completed. The Bearded Slave, the Atlas Slave, the Awakening Slave, and the Young Slave, though they appear unfinished, are just as Michelangelo intended them to be. The artist wanted to show what it might feel like to be forever enslaved.
Rather than sculpting figures in chains, Michelangelo made figures stuck in the very marble out of which they are carved. Bodies emerge from the stone, but not completely. Muscles flex, but the figures are never able to free themselves.
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:25
My empathy with the slave sculptures is immediate. Their plight is not unlike my struggle with sin. I am unable to free myself: like the sculptures I am stuck, “a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me” (Rom 7:23). No matter how hard I try, I cannot change myself. But thanks be to God, you and I will not remain unfinished works. We won’t be complete until heaven, but in the meantime as we welcome the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, He changes us. God promises to finish the good work He has begun in us (Phil. 1:6).
God, thank You that You make us new creatures through the work of Your Son Jesus Christ, freeing us from our slavery to sin.
He is the potter; we are the clay.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Held by the Grip of God
I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. —Philippians 3:12
Never choose to be a worker for God, but once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you “turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (Deuteronomy 5:32). We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has “laid hold of” us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, “Well, I’m really not suited for this.” What you are to preach is also determined by God, not by your own natural leanings or desires. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not simply to convey your testimony but also to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify to the truth of God, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God’s hand on you— your life is in the grip of God for that very purpose. How many of us are held like that?
Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are— you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do…I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I learning how to use my Bible? The way to become complete for the Master’s service is to be well soaked in the Bible; some of us only exploit certain passages. Our Lord wants to give us continuous instruction out of His word; continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples. Approved Unto God, 11 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Fallen Comrades - #7948
Throughout military history, the Army Rangers have been there in some of the most dramatic, most heroic combat events, like scaling the cliffs at Normandy Beach on D-Day. They were climbing right into the face of enemy fire. It's no surprise that the Rangers played a part, along with other Special Forces, in the rescue of that Iraqi prisoner of war years ago, Jessica Lynch, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. When you're fighting in the heat of battle, it's important to know that your comrades are going to go looking for you, no matter what. That's what happened then. That POW rescue was one example of a commitment that is expressed in the Army Ranger Creed; a commitment that's echoed in other branches of the military as well. Here's what the creed says: "I shall never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy." That's good stuff!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fallen Comrades."
Fighting for the fallen ones-going after the captured ones. I wonder if that's how we operate as God's army? His army is His Church, and if you belong to Jesus, you're part of it. And on any given day, there's a fellow soldier around us who's been wounded or maybe has even been captured by the enemy. Are we ready to say, "I shall never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy"?
There's a powerful picture of this kind of loyal commitment to one another in our word for today from the Word of God. Abram's nephew, Lot, is living in the city of Sodom where a multinational alliance is attacking the city. Genesis 14, beginning with verse 12, tells us "...they also carried off Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions. When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit." Abram and company engage the enemy, and the Bible tells us, "He brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people." By the way, the odds against those 318 were overwhelming.
Abram dropped everything, he risked everything to rescue a loved one who had fallen into the hands of the enemy. That's an example for all of us. Maybe right now you know someone who's been spiritually wounded or is going through a deep valley right now. That's where Proverbs 17:17 kicks in, "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." In other words, when everyone else is walking out, we should be walking in.
You may know someone who's really messed up, who's blown it, who's wandered away spiritually, maybe someone other believers are ignoring, marginalizing, condemning. Don't be one of them. They've never needed you more. You've got to go to them, however awkward, however difficult it may be. Show them the unconditional love of Jesus Christ. Let them feel it through you.
As God gives opportunity, remind them of how good it felt when they were close to Jesus. Right now they know how lousy it feels to be away from Him. Remind them that the issue is never Christians, it's Jesus. It's not the church. It's Jesus! It's all about Jesus. And He is all about bringing them back, forgiving them and restoring them.
God's instruction to His "Rangers" is, "If someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently." Look around the battlefield and you'll probably see a comrade, maybe even a family member, whom most people think of as the "problem child" or the "problem person" or the "prodigal." But Jesus sees, and I pray you will see a fallen comrade.
And we shall never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of our enemy!
Nothing in the Bible would cause us to call a famine good or a heart attack good or a terrorist attack good. These are terrible calamities, born out of a fallen earth. Yet every message in the Bible compels us to believe that God will mix them with other ingredients, and bring good out of them. But we must let God define good. Our definition includes health, comfort, and recognition. His definition? In the case of His Son, Jesus Christ, the good life consisted of struggles, storms, and death. But God worked it all together for the greatest of good: His glory and our salvation.
At some point we all stand at this intersection. Is God good when the outcome is not? Do you want to know heaven’s clearest answer to the question of suffering? Take a look at Jesus!
From You’ll Get Through This
Zechariah 1
1-4 In the eighth month of the second year in the reign of Darius, God’s Message came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, son of Iddo: “God was very angry with your ancestors. So give to the people this Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: ‘Come back to me and I’ll come back to you. Don’t be like your parents. The old-time prophets called out to them, “A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: Leave your evil life. Quit your evil practices.” But they ignored everything I said to them, stubbornly refused to listen.’
5-6 “And where are your ancestors now? Dead and buried. And the prophets who preached to them? Also dead and buried. But the Message that my servants the prophets spoke, that isn’t dead and buried. That Message did its work on your ancestors, did it not? It woke them up and they came back, saying, ‘He did what he said he would do, sure enough. We didn’t get by with a thing.’”
First Vision: Four Riders
7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month in the second year of the reign of Darius, the Message of God was given to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah, son of Iddo:
8 One night I looked out and saw a man astride a red horse. He was in the shadows in a grove of birches. Behind him were more horses—a red, a chestnut, and a white.
9 I said, “Sir, what are these horses doing here? What’s the meaning of this?”
The Angel-Messenger said, “Let me show you.”
10 Then the rider in the birch grove spoke up, “These are the riders that God sent to check things out on earth.”
11 They reported their findings to the Angel of God in the birch grove: “We have looked over the whole earth and all is well. Everything’s under control.”
12 The Angel of God reported back, “O God-of-the-Angel-Armies, how long are you going to stay angry with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah? When are you going to let up? Isn’t seventy years long enough?”
13-15 God reassured the Angel-Messenger—good words, comforting words—who then addressed me: “Tell them this. Tell them that God-of-the-Angel-Armies has spoken. This is God’s Message: ‘I care deeply for Jerusalem and Zion. I feel very possessive of them. But I’m thoroughly angry with the godless nations that act as if they own the whole world. I was only moderately angry earlier, but now they’ve gone too far. I’m going into action.
16-17 “‘I’ve come back to Jerusalem, but with compassion this time.’
This is God speaking.
‘I’ll see to it that my Temple is rebuilt.’
A Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
‘The rebuilding operation is already staked out.’
Say it again—a Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies:
‘My cities will prosper again,
God will comfort Zion again,
Jerusalem will be back in my favor again.’”
Second Vision: Four Horns and Four Blacksmiths
18 I looked up, and was surprised by another vision: four horns!
19 I asked the Messenger-Angel, “And what’s the meaning of this?”
He said, “These are the powers that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem abroad.”
20 Then God expanded the vision to include four blacksmiths.
21 I asked, “And what are these all about?”
He said, “Since the ‘horns’ scattered Judah so badly that no one had any hope left, these blacksmiths have arrived to combat the horns. They’ll dehorn the godless nations who used their horns to scatter Judah to the four winds.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Read: Romans 7:14–25
I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.
17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
24 I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
INSIGHT:
The war between the good we want to do and the bad we end up doing is a struggle for all Christ-followers. Paul places this tension as being between his “inner man” (his renewed heart and Holy Spirit-guided conscience) and the “flesh” (the fallen nature that still is drawn to sin). The good news is that someday we will be renewed in mind and body—free from the temptation to sin and the impact of our sinful choices.
Unfinished Works
By Amy Peterson
Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:24–25
At his death, the great artist Michelangelo left many unfinished projects. But four of his sculptures were never meant to be completed. The Bearded Slave, the Atlas Slave, the Awakening Slave, and the Young Slave, though they appear unfinished, are just as Michelangelo intended them to be. The artist wanted to show what it might feel like to be forever enslaved.
Rather than sculpting figures in chains, Michelangelo made figures stuck in the very marble out of which they are carved. Bodies emerge from the stone, but not completely. Muscles flex, but the figures are never able to free themselves.
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:25
My empathy with the slave sculptures is immediate. Their plight is not unlike my struggle with sin. I am unable to free myself: like the sculptures I am stuck, “a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me” (Rom 7:23). No matter how hard I try, I cannot change myself. But thanks be to God, you and I will not remain unfinished works. We won’t be complete until heaven, but in the meantime as we welcome the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, He changes us. God promises to finish the good work He has begun in us (Phil. 1:6).
God, thank You that You make us new creatures through the work of Your Son Jesus Christ, freeing us from our slavery to sin.
He is the potter; we are the clay.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Held by the Grip of God
I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. —Philippians 3:12
Never choose to be a worker for God, but once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you “turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (Deuteronomy 5:32). We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has “laid hold of” us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, “Well, I’m really not suited for this.” What you are to preach is also determined by God, not by your own natural leanings or desires. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not simply to convey your testimony but also to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify to the truth of God, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God’s hand on you— your life is in the grip of God for that very purpose. How many of us are held like that?
Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are— you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do…I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I learning how to use my Bible? The way to become complete for the Master’s service is to be well soaked in the Bible; some of us only exploit certain passages. Our Lord wants to give us continuous instruction out of His word; continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples. Approved Unto God, 11 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Fallen Comrades - #7948
Throughout military history, the Army Rangers have been there in some of the most dramatic, most heroic combat events, like scaling the cliffs at Normandy Beach on D-Day. They were climbing right into the face of enemy fire. It's no surprise that the Rangers played a part, along with other Special Forces, in the rescue of that Iraqi prisoner of war years ago, Jessica Lynch, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. When you're fighting in the heat of battle, it's important to know that your comrades are going to go looking for you, no matter what. That's what happened then. That POW rescue was one example of a commitment that is expressed in the Army Ranger Creed; a commitment that's echoed in other branches of the military as well. Here's what the creed says: "I shall never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy." That's good stuff!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fallen Comrades."
Fighting for the fallen ones-going after the captured ones. I wonder if that's how we operate as God's army? His army is His Church, and if you belong to Jesus, you're part of it. And on any given day, there's a fellow soldier around us who's been wounded or maybe has even been captured by the enemy. Are we ready to say, "I shall never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy"?
There's a powerful picture of this kind of loyal commitment to one another in our word for today from the Word of God. Abram's nephew, Lot, is living in the city of Sodom where a multinational alliance is attacking the city. Genesis 14, beginning with verse 12, tells us "...they also carried off Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions. When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit." Abram and company engage the enemy, and the Bible tells us, "He brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people." By the way, the odds against those 318 were overwhelming.
Abram dropped everything, he risked everything to rescue a loved one who had fallen into the hands of the enemy. That's an example for all of us. Maybe right now you know someone who's been spiritually wounded or is going through a deep valley right now. That's where Proverbs 17:17 kicks in, "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." In other words, when everyone else is walking out, we should be walking in.
You may know someone who's really messed up, who's blown it, who's wandered away spiritually, maybe someone other believers are ignoring, marginalizing, condemning. Don't be one of them. They've never needed you more. You've got to go to them, however awkward, however difficult it may be. Show them the unconditional love of Jesus Christ. Let them feel it through you.
As God gives opportunity, remind them of how good it felt when they were close to Jesus. Right now they know how lousy it feels to be away from Him. Remind them that the issue is never Christians, it's Jesus. It's not the church. It's Jesus! It's all about Jesus. And He is all about bringing them back, forgiving them and restoring them.
God's instruction to His "Rangers" is, "If someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently." Look around the battlefield and you'll probably see a comrade, maybe even a family member, whom most people think of as the "problem child" or the "problem person" or the "prodigal." But Jesus sees, and I pray you will see a fallen comrade.
And we shall never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of our enemy!
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
3 John 1 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: KEEP WAITING–GOD IS AT WORK
I’m convinced the Sabbath was created for frantic souls like me, people who need a weekly reminder that the world will not stop if I do. In one of the most dramatic examples of waiting in the Bible, Daniel prays for people who’d been oppressed for seventy years. He abstained from food and drink for twenty-one days, as he labored in prayer, persisted, pleaded, and agonized. No response. On the twenty-second day an angel of God appeared. He revealed to Daniel that his prayer had been heard on the first day. From an earthly perspective, nothing was happening. But from a heavenly perspective a battle was raging in the heavens. God was working.
What if Daniel had given up? Lost faith? Walked away from God? Better questions: What if you give up? Lose faith? Walk away? Don’t! God is at work. Keep waiting!
From You’ll Get Through This
3 John 1
The Pastor, to my good friend Gaius: How truly I love you! We’re the best of friends, and I pray for good fortune in everything you do, and for your good health—that your everyday affairs prosper, as well as your soul! I was most happy when some friends arrived and brought the news that you persist in following the way of Truth. Nothing could make me happier than getting reports that my children continue diligently in the way of Truth!
Model the Good
5-8 Dear friend, when you extend hospitality to Christian brothers and sisters, even when they are strangers, you make the faith visible. They’ve made a full report back to the church here, a message about your love. It’s good work you’re doing, helping these travelers on their way, hospitality worthy of God himself! They set out under the banner of the Name, and get no help from unbelievers. So they deserve any support we can give them. In providing meals and a bed, we become their companions in spreading the Truth.
9-10 Earlier I wrote something along this line to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves being in charge, denigrates my counsel. If I come, you can be sure I’ll hold him to account for spreading vicious rumors about us.
As if that weren’t bad enough, he not only refuses hospitality to traveling Christians but tries to stop others from welcoming them. Worse yet, instead of inviting them in he throws them out.
11 Friend, don’t go along with evil. Model the good. The person who does good does God’s work. The person who does evil falsifies God, doesn’t know the first thing about God.
12 Everyone has a good word for Demetrius—the Truth itself stands up for Demetrius! We concur, and you know we don’t hand out endorsements lightly.
13-14 I have a lot more things to tell you, but I’d rather not use pen and ink. I hope to be there soon in person and have a heart-to-heart talk.
Peace to you. The friends here say hello. Greet our friends there by name.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Read: James 5:13–18
Prayer to Be Reckoned With
13-15 Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.
16-18 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.
INSIGHT:
In today’s reading we see how believers can enrich their fellowship with God through intercession and praise. Prayer is a vital lifeline of conversation with the living God who made us and provided for our redemption. In James 5:13–18 we read how we are urged to use prayer in all the seasons of our lives. When we are blessed, we can offer an expression of thanksgiving and praise. When we or others are physically ill, we can offer intercession for healing. In times of temptation and struggle, prayers for victory are a priority. Elijah is an example of someone who had the same needs and weaknesses that we do; yet his prayers to God resulted in the rain stopping for three and a half years and then starting again.
What can you have a conversation with God about today?
Five-Finger Prayers
By Anne Cetas
Pray for each other. James 5:16
Prayer is a conversation with God, not a formula. Yet sometimes we might need to use a “method” to freshen up our prayer time. We can pray the Psalms or other Scriptures (such as The Lord’s Prayer), or use the ACTS method (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication). I recently came across this “Five-Finger Prayer” to use as a guide when praying for others:
• When you fold your hands, the thumb is nearest you. So begin by praying for those closest to you—your loved ones (Phil. 1:3–5).
Father, give me the wisdom to know how to pray for others.
• The index finger is the pointer. Pray for those who teach—Bible teachers and preachers, and those who teach children (1 Thess. 5:25).
• The next finger is the tallest. It reminds you to pray for those in authority over you—national and local leaders, and your supervisor at work (1 Tim. 2:1–2).
• The fourth finger is usually the weakest. Pray for those who are in trouble or who are suffering (James 5:13–16).
• Then comes your little finger. It reminds you of your smallness in relation to God’s greatness. Ask Him to supply your needs (Phil. 4:6, 19).
Whatever method you use, just talk with your Father. He wants to hear what’s on your heart.
Father, give me the wisdom to know how to pray for others.
It’s not the words we pray that matter; it’s the condition of our heart.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
The Overshadowing of God’s Personal Deliverance
"…I am with you to deliver you," says the Lord. —Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally— “…your life shall be as a prize to you…” (Jeremiah 39:18). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose. If this is not the case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress. Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God’s personal deliverance.
The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, “Don’t worry about whether or not you are being treated justly.” Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, “Why should I be treated like this?” If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust. In essence, Jesus says, “Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance.” Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard— we do not believe Him. We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God’s name to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
When Old Faithful Isn't - #7947
Now, here was a bothersome headline a while back from USA Today, "Old Faithful Gets Fickle." What? They were referring to that famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park. As long as any of us tourists could remember, that 140 foot tower of steam erupted faithfully about every 66 minutes. But, something was not right all of a sudden this report said. There was a day that the eruption predicted for 12:11 p.m. didn't occur until 12:18 p.m. One predicted for 2:46 p.m. jumped the gun at 2:38 p.m. So "Tommy tourist" who was counting on "Old Faithful" faithfulness might go for a hot dog and say "Hey! I've still got ten minutes," and miss the whole thing. The problem - underground shifts caused by minor earthquakes, and vandalism by visitors who threw everything from chicken bones to underwear into the geysers hole! One Yellowstone geologist actually said this "There's a good chance that five years from now, or five days, or five hundred years, "Old Faithful" is going to be totally unpredictable, or it's not going to erupt anymore altogether." Wow! So, "Old Faithful" becomes "Old Unpredictable."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Old Faithful Isn't."
Most of us have had something or someone that was kind of our "Old Faithful", but they became "Old Unpredictable." Suddenly the job you've depended on for a long time is gone, maybe even the whole company is gone, or your mate is gone, or your parents' marriage, or some relationship you've depended on heavily.
Maybe your church or your spiritual leaders have let you down and they were once your "Old Faithful." It could be that your own body, the one that has been running fine for years, is suddenly letting you down. Whatever it is, it hurts when an "Old Faithful" isn't anymore. It leaves us disoriented, and afraid, and unsure of ourselves or unsure of our future.
Our word for today from the Word of God begins in Lamentations 3:19. Jeremiah says, "I remember my afflictions and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall, I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail, they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.'"
Now, Jeremiah's environment was wasted, the city of Jerusalem, the anchor of Jewish identity had been devastated. That's what he's lamenting in Lamentations. Jeremiah's feelings were all over the place - affliction, wandering, bitterness, a downcast soul. He's supposed to be God's man in the situation, and he wasn't even able to manage himself.
Then come these breakthrough words "I have hope." That might be what you're short of right now, hope, His hope: "Lord, everything has moved except you." Each new morning. His love is there in the way you need it for that particular day. You can count on it. If this is a time when an "Old Faithful" has let you down, don't let it bring you down. You've just entered that zone where people taste the mercy and power of God as nowhere else. I call it the "Only God Zone." A season where the living God is all you've got, all you can depend on, and all you need. Unless you let the hurt and the confusion drive you into yourself instead of into Him.
This is a time for you to explore the awesome depths of those Bible words you've sung so many times, "Great is Thy faithfulness, oh God my Father. There is no turning of shadow with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me." Your Lord will never abandon you, never divorce you, never lay you off, never be too busy for you. The most powerful Person in the world is totally committed to you.
"Old Faithfuls" aren't always, except for One. Your Heavenly Father will always be there, showing up with all His love and all His power, right on time.
I’m convinced the Sabbath was created for frantic souls like me, people who need a weekly reminder that the world will not stop if I do. In one of the most dramatic examples of waiting in the Bible, Daniel prays for people who’d been oppressed for seventy years. He abstained from food and drink for twenty-one days, as he labored in prayer, persisted, pleaded, and agonized. No response. On the twenty-second day an angel of God appeared. He revealed to Daniel that his prayer had been heard on the first day. From an earthly perspective, nothing was happening. But from a heavenly perspective a battle was raging in the heavens. God was working.
What if Daniel had given up? Lost faith? Walked away from God? Better questions: What if you give up? Lose faith? Walk away? Don’t! God is at work. Keep waiting!
From You’ll Get Through This
3 John 1
The Pastor, to my good friend Gaius: How truly I love you! We’re the best of friends, and I pray for good fortune in everything you do, and for your good health—that your everyday affairs prosper, as well as your soul! I was most happy when some friends arrived and brought the news that you persist in following the way of Truth. Nothing could make me happier than getting reports that my children continue diligently in the way of Truth!
Model the Good
5-8 Dear friend, when you extend hospitality to Christian brothers and sisters, even when they are strangers, you make the faith visible. They’ve made a full report back to the church here, a message about your love. It’s good work you’re doing, helping these travelers on their way, hospitality worthy of God himself! They set out under the banner of the Name, and get no help from unbelievers. So they deserve any support we can give them. In providing meals and a bed, we become their companions in spreading the Truth.
9-10 Earlier I wrote something along this line to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves being in charge, denigrates my counsel. If I come, you can be sure I’ll hold him to account for spreading vicious rumors about us.
As if that weren’t bad enough, he not only refuses hospitality to traveling Christians but tries to stop others from welcoming them. Worse yet, instead of inviting them in he throws them out.
11 Friend, don’t go along with evil. Model the good. The person who does good does God’s work. The person who does evil falsifies God, doesn’t know the first thing about God.
12 Everyone has a good word for Demetrius—the Truth itself stands up for Demetrius! We concur, and you know we don’t hand out endorsements lightly.
13-14 I have a lot more things to tell you, but I’d rather not use pen and ink. I hope to be there soon in person and have a heart-to-heart talk.
Peace to you. The friends here say hello. Greet our friends there by name.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Read: James 5:13–18
Prayer to Be Reckoned With
13-15 Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.
16-18 Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn’t rain, and it didn’t—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again.
INSIGHT:
In today’s reading we see how believers can enrich their fellowship with God through intercession and praise. Prayer is a vital lifeline of conversation with the living God who made us and provided for our redemption. In James 5:13–18 we read how we are urged to use prayer in all the seasons of our lives. When we are blessed, we can offer an expression of thanksgiving and praise. When we or others are physically ill, we can offer intercession for healing. In times of temptation and struggle, prayers for victory are a priority. Elijah is an example of someone who had the same needs and weaknesses that we do; yet his prayers to God resulted in the rain stopping for three and a half years and then starting again.
What can you have a conversation with God about today?
Five-Finger Prayers
By Anne Cetas
Pray for each other. James 5:16
Prayer is a conversation with God, not a formula. Yet sometimes we might need to use a “method” to freshen up our prayer time. We can pray the Psalms or other Scriptures (such as The Lord’s Prayer), or use the ACTS method (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication). I recently came across this “Five-Finger Prayer” to use as a guide when praying for others:
• When you fold your hands, the thumb is nearest you. So begin by praying for those closest to you—your loved ones (Phil. 1:3–5).
Father, give me the wisdom to know how to pray for others.
• The index finger is the pointer. Pray for those who teach—Bible teachers and preachers, and those who teach children (1 Thess. 5:25).
• The next finger is the tallest. It reminds you to pray for those in authority over you—national and local leaders, and your supervisor at work (1 Tim. 2:1–2).
• The fourth finger is usually the weakest. Pray for those who are in trouble or who are suffering (James 5:13–16).
• Then comes your little finger. It reminds you of your smallness in relation to God’s greatness. Ask Him to supply your needs (Phil. 4:6, 19).
Whatever method you use, just talk with your Father. He wants to hear what’s on your heart.
Father, give me the wisdom to know how to pray for others.
It’s not the words we pray that matter; it’s the condition of our heart.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
The Overshadowing of God’s Personal Deliverance
"…I am with you to deliver you," says the Lord. —Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally— “…your life shall be as a prize to you…” (Jeremiah 39:18). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose. If this is not the case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress. Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God’s personal deliverance.
The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, “Don’t worry about whether or not you are being treated justly.” Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, “Why should I be treated like this?” If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust. In essence, Jesus says, “Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance.” Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard— we do not believe Him. We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God’s name to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
When Old Faithful Isn't - #7947
Now, here was a bothersome headline a while back from USA Today, "Old Faithful Gets Fickle." What? They were referring to that famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park. As long as any of us tourists could remember, that 140 foot tower of steam erupted faithfully about every 66 minutes. But, something was not right all of a sudden this report said. There was a day that the eruption predicted for 12:11 p.m. didn't occur until 12:18 p.m. One predicted for 2:46 p.m. jumped the gun at 2:38 p.m. So "Tommy tourist" who was counting on "Old Faithful" faithfulness might go for a hot dog and say "Hey! I've still got ten minutes," and miss the whole thing. The problem - underground shifts caused by minor earthquakes, and vandalism by visitors who threw everything from chicken bones to underwear into the geysers hole! One Yellowstone geologist actually said this "There's a good chance that five years from now, or five days, or five hundred years, "Old Faithful" is going to be totally unpredictable, or it's not going to erupt anymore altogether." Wow! So, "Old Faithful" becomes "Old Unpredictable."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Old Faithful Isn't."
Most of us have had something or someone that was kind of our "Old Faithful", but they became "Old Unpredictable." Suddenly the job you've depended on for a long time is gone, maybe even the whole company is gone, or your mate is gone, or your parents' marriage, or some relationship you've depended on heavily.
Maybe your church or your spiritual leaders have let you down and they were once your "Old Faithful." It could be that your own body, the one that has been running fine for years, is suddenly letting you down. Whatever it is, it hurts when an "Old Faithful" isn't anymore. It leaves us disoriented, and afraid, and unsure of ourselves or unsure of our future.
Our word for today from the Word of God begins in Lamentations 3:19. Jeremiah says, "I remember my afflictions and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall, I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail, they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.'"
Now, Jeremiah's environment was wasted, the city of Jerusalem, the anchor of Jewish identity had been devastated. That's what he's lamenting in Lamentations. Jeremiah's feelings were all over the place - affliction, wandering, bitterness, a downcast soul. He's supposed to be God's man in the situation, and he wasn't even able to manage himself.
Then come these breakthrough words "I have hope." That might be what you're short of right now, hope, His hope: "Lord, everything has moved except you." Each new morning. His love is there in the way you need it for that particular day. You can count on it. If this is a time when an "Old Faithful" has let you down, don't let it bring you down. You've just entered that zone where people taste the mercy and power of God as nowhere else. I call it the "Only God Zone." A season where the living God is all you've got, all you can depend on, and all you need. Unless you let the hurt and the confusion drive you into yourself instead of into Him.
This is a time for you to explore the awesome depths of those Bible words you've sung so many times, "Great is Thy faithfulness, oh God my Father. There is no turning of shadow with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me." Your Lord will never abandon you, never divorce you, never lay you off, never be too busy for you. The most powerful Person in the world is totally committed to you.
"Old Faithfuls" aren't always, except for One. Your Heavenly Father will always be there, showing up with all His love and all His power, right on time.
Monday, June 26, 2017
2 John 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD SHAPES HIS SERVANTS
Compassion matters to God. This is the time for service, not self-centeredness. Cancel the pity party. Love the people God brings to you. This test will be your testimony. Second Corinthians 1:4 reminds us, “God comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, He brings us alongside someone else who’s going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us” (MSG).
You didn’t sign up for this crash course in single parenting or caring for a disabled spouse, did you? No, God enrolled you. Why? So you can teach others what He has taught you. Rather than say, “God, why?” ask, “God, what?” What can I learn from this experience? Your mess can become His message!
From You’ll Get Through This
2 John 1
1-2 My dear congregation, I, your pastor, love you in very truth. And I’m not alone—everyone who knows the Truth that has taken up permanent residence in us loves you.
3 Let grace, mercy, and peace be with us in truth and love from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, Son of the Father!
4-6 I can’t tell you how happy I am to learn that many members of your congregation are diligent in living out the Truth, exactly as commanded by the Father. But permit me a reminder, friends, and this is not a new commandment but simply a repetition of our original and basic charter: that we love each other. Love means following his commandments, and his unifying commandment is that you conduct your lives in love. This is the first thing you heard, and nothing has changed.
Don’t Walk Out on God
7 There are a lot of smooth-talking charlatans loose in the world who refuse to believe that Jesus Christ was truly human, a flesh-and-blood human being. Give them their true title: Deceiver! Antichrist!
8-9 And be very careful around them so you don’t lose out on what we’ve worked so diligently in together; I want you to get every reward you have coming to you. Anyone who gets so progressive in his thinking that he walks out on the teaching of Christ, walks out on God. But whoever stays with the teaching, stays faithful to both the Father and the Son.
10-11 If anyone shows up who doesn’t hold to this teaching, don’t invite him in and give him the run of the place. That would just give him a platform to perpetuate his evil ways, making you his partner.
12-13 I have a lot more things to tell you, but I’d rather not use paper and ink. I hope to be there soon in person and have a heart-to-heart talk. That will be far more satisfying to both you and me. Everyone here in your sister congregation sends greetings.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, June 26, 2017
Read: Genesis 1:24–31
God spoke: “Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind:
cattle and reptiles and wild animals—all kinds.”
And there it was:
wild animals of every kind,
Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug.
God saw that it was good.
26-28 God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
29-30 Then God said, “I’ve given you
every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,
given them to you for food.
To all animals and all birds,
everything that moves and breathes,
I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”
And there it was.
31 God looked over everything he had made;
it was so good, so very good!
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Six.
INSIGHT:
Do we sometimes get lost in thinking about all that is wrong with the world? When we do, remember how the God of creation asked a man named Job to consider what the wonder of all nature is saying to us about His goodness and wisdom (Job 38:1–42:6).
Very Good!
By Alyson Kieda
Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! Genesis 1:31 nlt
Some days seem to have a theme running through them. Recently I had one of those days. Our pastor began his sermon on Genesis 1 with two minutes of breathtaking, time-lapse photography of blossoming flowers. Then, at home, a scroll through social media revealed numerous posts of flowers. Later on a walk in the woods, the wildflowers of spring surrounded us—trilliums, marsh marigolds, and wild iris.
God created flowers and every other variety of vegetation (and dry ground to grow in), on the third day of creation. And twice on that day, God pronounced it “good” (Gen. 1:10, 12). On only one other day of creation—the sixth—did God make that double pronouncement of “good” (vv. 25, 31). In fact, on this day when He created humans and His masterpiece was complete, He looked over all He had made and “saw that it was very good!” (nlt).
Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! Genesis 1:31 nlt
In the creation story, we see a Creator God who delighted in His creation—and seemed to take joy in the very act of creating. Why else design a world with such colorful and amazing variety? And He saved the best for last when He “created mankind in his own image” (v. 27). As His image-bearers we are blessed and inspired by His beautiful handiwork.
Dear Creator God, thank You for creating the world in all its beauty for our enjoyment—and Yours. Thank You too for making us in Your image so that we would be inspired to create.
All creation bears God’s autograph.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, June 26, 2017
Drawing on the Grace of God— Now
We…plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. —2 Corinthians 6:1
The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today. Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed. “…in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses”— that is where our patience is tested (2 Corinthians 6:4). Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there? Are you saying to yourself, “Oh well, I won’t count this time”? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you— it is taking the grace of God now. We tend to make prayer the preparation for our service, yet it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don’t say, “I will endure this until I can get away and pray.” Pray now — draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God’s grace through prayer.
“…in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors…” (2 Corinthians 6:5)— in all these things, display in your life a drawing on the grace of God, which will show evidence to yourself and to others that you are a miracle of His. Draw on His grace now, not later. The primary word in the spiritual vocabulary is now. Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace.
“…having nothing….” Never hold anything in reserve. Pour yourself out, giving the best that you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful with the treasure God gives you. “…and yet possessing all things”— this is poverty triumphant (2 Corinthians 6:10).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Christianity is not consistency to conscience or to convictions; Christianity is being true to Jesus Christ. Biblical Ethics, 111 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, June 26, 2017
Living For His Arrival - #7946
Missy taught me about dogs. Missy was our Shih-tzu dog. Our son was given Missy when she was a puppy and he was in high school. And I was amazed at their relationship. When he came downstairs each morning, Missy came to life. Then, as soon as he left, she'd just kind of hunker down under this cabinet in the kitchen and kind of be bla-bla there all day long...until she heard that car pulling in the driveway late in the afternoon. I couldn't hear it pulling in, but Missy sure could! In an instant, she came alive! She shot out from under that cabinet and stationed herself at the back door with her tail in overdrive. When our son came through that door, Missy freaked out! Her whole day revolved around one big event-her master's return.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Living For His Arrival."
Our word for today from the Word of God, 2 Timothy 4:8: "Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day-and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing." The KJV refers to all those "who love His appearing". Jesus has special things in store for His followers who love the prospect of His arrival, who will live for the prospect of their Master's return like a certain dog I know.
God's challenge is to revolve your life around your Master's coming. But unlike a certain dog I know, not to just retreat until He comes. In the previous verses, Paul describes how he lived in light of his Lord's return. It says he "fought the good fight", he "finished the race", he poured out his life. He showed that He was looking for his Lord by actively, aggressively putting the things of God, the work of God, the agenda of God first in his life. That way he could be, as John says, "confident and unashamed before Him at His coming." In other words, living in such a way that Jesus will be proud of you when He comes; in a way that you won't have to run and hide when He comes.
When our oldest son was 12, we were at a Christian conference center, and he and I were just coming out of a meeting where the speaker had talked a lot about the mess the world is in. He seemed kind of weighed down with what he had heard. I said, "Just remember-some day, maybe soon, Jesus is going to come back and make all that right." To which he replied, "I don't want Him to come back yet." I asked him why-and I've never forgotten his answer. He said, "I want to have more devotions first, Dad. I want to know Jesus better before I see Him."
That's a part of loving your Master's return-to learn to love your Master better before He returns. That's living to see Jesus. It means arranging your daily schedule so Jesus gets prime time. It's saying, "Jesus, I'm going to see You soon, and I'm going to start spending time with you right now."
Loving your Master's return also means living for things that will matter when He comes back. Like whether or not the people around you are ready to meet Him, like whether or not your money's going to be all tied up in earth-stuff or invested in heaven-stuff when He comes, like whether your schedule looks like one that realizes what will last and what will not.
Those who love their Master's return, those who live for their Master's return examine all their priorities in light of that glorious event. I personally, along with a whole lot of believers, have a feeling it's late in the day-maybe about the time your Master might be coming back.
I hope when He appears, you'll be able to run to the door excitedly-because you've been revolving your life around His coming all day long.
Compassion matters to God. This is the time for service, not self-centeredness. Cancel the pity party. Love the people God brings to you. This test will be your testimony. Second Corinthians 1:4 reminds us, “God comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, He brings us alongside someone else who’s going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us” (MSG).
You didn’t sign up for this crash course in single parenting or caring for a disabled spouse, did you? No, God enrolled you. Why? So you can teach others what He has taught you. Rather than say, “God, why?” ask, “God, what?” What can I learn from this experience? Your mess can become His message!
From You’ll Get Through This
2 John 1
1-2 My dear congregation, I, your pastor, love you in very truth. And I’m not alone—everyone who knows the Truth that has taken up permanent residence in us loves you.
3 Let grace, mercy, and peace be with us in truth and love from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, Son of the Father!
4-6 I can’t tell you how happy I am to learn that many members of your congregation are diligent in living out the Truth, exactly as commanded by the Father. But permit me a reminder, friends, and this is not a new commandment but simply a repetition of our original and basic charter: that we love each other. Love means following his commandments, and his unifying commandment is that you conduct your lives in love. This is the first thing you heard, and nothing has changed.
Don’t Walk Out on God
7 There are a lot of smooth-talking charlatans loose in the world who refuse to believe that Jesus Christ was truly human, a flesh-and-blood human being. Give them their true title: Deceiver! Antichrist!
8-9 And be very careful around them so you don’t lose out on what we’ve worked so diligently in together; I want you to get every reward you have coming to you. Anyone who gets so progressive in his thinking that he walks out on the teaching of Christ, walks out on God. But whoever stays with the teaching, stays faithful to both the Father and the Son.
10-11 If anyone shows up who doesn’t hold to this teaching, don’t invite him in and give him the run of the place. That would just give him a platform to perpetuate his evil ways, making you his partner.
12-13 I have a lot more things to tell you, but I’d rather not use paper and ink. I hope to be there soon in person and have a heart-to-heart talk. That will be far more satisfying to both you and me. Everyone here in your sister congregation sends greetings.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, June 26, 2017
Read: Genesis 1:24–31
God spoke: “Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind:
cattle and reptiles and wild animals—all kinds.”
And there it was:
wild animals of every kind,
Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug.
God saw that it was good.
26-28 God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
29-30 Then God said, “I’ve given you
every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,
given them to you for food.
To all animals and all birds,
everything that moves and breathes,
I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”
And there it was.
31 God looked over everything he had made;
it was so good, so very good!
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Six.
INSIGHT:
Do we sometimes get lost in thinking about all that is wrong with the world? When we do, remember how the God of creation asked a man named Job to consider what the wonder of all nature is saying to us about His goodness and wisdom (Job 38:1–42:6).
Very Good!
By Alyson Kieda
Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! Genesis 1:31 nlt
Some days seem to have a theme running through them. Recently I had one of those days. Our pastor began his sermon on Genesis 1 with two minutes of breathtaking, time-lapse photography of blossoming flowers. Then, at home, a scroll through social media revealed numerous posts of flowers. Later on a walk in the woods, the wildflowers of spring surrounded us—trilliums, marsh marigolds, and wild iris.
God created flowers and every other variety of vegetation (and dry ground to grow in), on the third day of creation. And twice on that day, God pronounced it “good” (Gen. 1:10, 12). On only one other day of creation—the sixth—did God make that double pronouncement of “good” (vv. 25, 31). In fact, on this day when He created humans and His masterpiece was complete, He looked over all He had made and “saw that it was very good!” (nlt).
Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! Genesis 1:31 nlt
In the creation story, we see a Creator God who delighted in His creation—and seemed to take joy in the very act of creating. Why else design a world with such colorful and amazing variety? And He saved the best for last when He “created mankind in his own image” (v. 27). As His image-bearers we are blessed and inspired by His beautiful handiwork.
Dear Creator God, thank You for creating the world in all its beauty for our enjoyment—and Yours. Thank You too for making us in Your image so that we would be inspired to create.
All creation bears God’s autograph.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, June 26, 2017
Drawing on the Grace of God— Now
We…plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. —2 Corinthians 6:1
The grace you had yesterday will not be sufficient for today. Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon as needed. “…in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses”— that is where our patience is tested (2 Corinthians 6:4). Are you failing to rely on the grace of God there? Are you saying to yourself, “Oh well, I won’t count this time”? It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you— it is taking the grace of God now. We tend to make prayer the preparation for our service, yet it is never that in the Bible. Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don’t say, “I will endure this until I can get away and pray.” Pray now — draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God’s grace through prayer.
“…in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors…” (2 Corinthians 6:5)— in all these things, display in your life a drawing on the grace of God, which will show evidence to yourself and to others that you are a miracle of His. Draw on His grace now, not later. The primary word in the spiritual vocabulary is now. Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace.
“…having nothing….” Never hold anything in reserve. Pour yourself out, giving the best that you have, and always be poor. Never be diplomatic and careful with the treasure God gives you. “…and yet possessing all things”— this is poverty triumphant (2 Corinthians 6:10).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Christianity is not consistency to conscience or to convictions; Christianity is being true to Jesus Christ. Biblical Ethics, 111 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, June 26, 2017
Living For His Arrival - #7946
Missy taught me about dogs. Missy was our Shih-tzu dog. Our son was given Missy when she was a puppy and he was in high school. And I was amazed at their relationship. When he came downstairs each morning, Missy came to life. Then, as soon as he left, she'd just kind of hunker down under this cabinet in the kitchen and kind of be bla-bla there all day long...until she heard that car pulling in the driveway late in the afternoon. I couldn't hear it pulling in, but Missy sure could! In an instant, she came alive! She shot out from under that cabinet and stationed herself at the back door with her tail in overdrive. When our son came through that door, Missy freaked out! Her whole day revolved around one big event-her master's return.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Living For His Arrival."
Our word for today from the Word of God, 2 Timothy 4:8: "Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day-and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing." The KJV refers to all those "who love His appearing". Jesus has special things in store for His followers who love the prospect of His arrival, who will live for the prospect of their Master's return like a certain dog I know.
God's challenge is to revolve your life around your Master's coming. But unlike a certain dog I know, not to just retreat until He comes. In the previous verses, Paul describes how he lived in light of his Lord's return. It says he "fought the good fight", he "finished the race", he poured out his life. He showed that He was looking for his Lord by actively, aggressively putting the things of God, the work of God, the agenda of God first in his life. That way he could be, as John says, "confident and unashamed before Him at His coming." In other words, living in such a way that Jesus will be proud of you when He comes; in a way that you won't have to run and hide when He comes.
When our oldest son was 12, we were at a Christian conference center, and he and I were just coming out of a meeting where the speaker had talked a lot about the mess the world is in. He seemed kind of weighed down with what he had heard. I said, "Just remember-some day, maybe soon, Jesus is going to come back and make all that right." To which he replied, "I don't want Him to come back yet." I asked him why-and I've never forgotten his answer. He said, "I want to have more devotions first, Dad. I want to know Jesus better before I see Him."
That's a part of loving your Master's return-to learn to love your Master better before He returns. That's living to see Jesus. It means arranging your daily schedule so Jesus gets prime time. It's saying, "Jesus, I'm going to see You soon, and I'm going to start spending time with you right now."
Loving your Master's return also means living for things that will matter when He comes back. Like whether or not the people around you are ready to meet Him, like whether or not your money's going to be all tied up in earth-stuff or invested in heaven-stuff when He comes, like whether your schedule looks like one that realizes what will last and what will not.
Those who love their Master's return, those who live for their Master's return examine all their priorities in light of that glorious event. I personally, along with a whole lot of believers, have a feeling it's late in the day-maybe about the time your Master might be coming back.
I hope when He appears, you'll be able to run to the door excitedly-because you've been revolving your life around His coming all day long.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Haggai 2 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Our Ability to Hear
When our daughter Jenna was five years old, I took her to get a bike. And Andrea, age three, decided she wanted one as well. I explained to her she was too young for a two-wheeler. That when she was older she would get a bike too. No luck. She still wanted a bike. She turned her head and said nothing. Finally I sighed and said this time her daddy knew best.
Her response? She screamed it loud enough for everyone in the store to hear…“Then I want a new daddy!” Andrea, with three-year-old reasoning powers, couldn’t believe that a new bike would be anything less than ideal for her. And the one to grant that bliss was sitting on his hands.
If you’ve heard the silence of God, you may learn that the problem is not as much in God’s silence as it is in your ability to hear and your capacity to understand!
From Dad Time
Haggai 2
This Temple Will End Up Better Than It Started Out
1-3 On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the Word of God came through the prophet Haggai: “Tell Governor Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and High Priest Joshua son of Jehozadak and all the people: ‘Is there anyone here who saw the Temple the way it used to be, all glorious? And what do you see now? Not much, right?
4-5 “‘So get to work, Zerubbabel!’—God is speaking.
“‘Get to work, Joshua son of Jehozadak—high priest!’
“‘Get to work, all you people!’—God is speaking.
“‘Yes, get to work! For I am with you.’ The God-of-the-Angel-Armies is speaking! ‘Put into action the word I covenanted with you when you left Egypt. I’m living and breathing among you right now. Don’t be timid. Don’t hold back.’
6-7 “This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies said: ‘Before you know it, I will shake up sky and earth, ocean and fields. And I’ll shake down all the godless nations. They’ll bring bushels of wealth and I will fill this Temple with splendor.’ God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.
8 ‘I own the silver,
I own the gold.’
Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
9 “‘This Temple is going to end up far better than it started out, a glorious beginning but an even more glorious finish: a place in which I will hand out wholeness and holiness.’ Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.”
10-12 On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (again, this was in the second year of Darius), God’s Message came to Haggai: “God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: Consult the priests for a ruling. If someone carries a piece of sacred meat in his pocket, meat that is set apart for sacrifice on the altar, and the pocket touches a loaf of bread, a dish of stew, a bottle of wine or oil, or any other food, will these foods be made holy by such contact?”
The priests said, “No.”
13 Then Haggai said, “How about someone who is contaminated by touching a corpse—if that person touches one of these foods, will it be contaminated?”
The priests said, “Yes, it will be contaminated.”
14 Then Haggai said, “‘So, this people is contaminated. Their nation is contaminated. Everything they do is contaminated. Whatever they do for me is contaminated.’ God says so.
15-17 “‘Think back. Before you set out to lay the first foundation stones for the rebuilding of my Temple, how did it go with you? Isn’t it true that your foot-dragging, halfhearted efforts at rebuilding the Temple of God were reflected in a sluggish, halfway return on your crops—half the grain you were used to getting, half the wine? I hit you with drought and blight and hail. Everything you were doing got hit. But it didn’t seem to faze you. You continued to ignore me.’ God’s Decree.
18-19 “‘Now think ahead from this same date—this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Think ahead from when the Temple rebuilding was launched. Has anything in your fields—vine, fig tree, pomegranate, olive tree—failed to flourish? From now on you can count on a blessing.’”
20-21 God’s Message came a second time to Haggai on that most memorable day, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month: “Speak to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah:
21-23 “‘I am about to shake up everything, to turn everything upside down and start over from top to bottom—overthrow governments, destroy foreign powers, dismantle the world of weapons and armaments, throw armies into confusion, so that they end up killing one another. And on that day’”—this is God’s Message—“‘I will take you, O Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, as my personal servant and I will set you as a signet ring, the sign of my sovereign presence and authority. I’ve looked over the field and chosen you for this work.’” The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Read: Deuteronomy 6:1–9
1-2 This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you’re about to cross into to possess. This is so that you’ll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I’m commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives.
3 Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.
4 Attention, Israel!
God, our God! God the one and only!
5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.
INSIGHT:
Deuteronomy 6:4–9, known as the Shema (from the Hebrew for “hear,” v. 4), has been called the Creed of Ancient Israel. It emphasizes the Jewish belief in one God and the importance of transmitting faith in Him to the next generation. As believers in Christ, we can find creative ways to remind others of God’s truths. We begin by saturating ourselves with the Scriptures. Then we can look for teachable moments throughout the day to instruct others.
What are some ways you can remind the next generation of spiritual truths?
Soaking Up God’s Word
By Xochitl Dixon
These commandments that I give to you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Deuteronomy 6:6–7
When our son Xavier was a toddler, we took a family trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. As we entered the building, I pointed to a large sculpture suspended from the ceiling. “Look. A humpback whale.”
Xavier’s eyes widened. “Enormous,” he said.
We can leave a legacy of faith to future generations.
My husband turned to me. “How does he know that word?”
“He must have heard us say it.” I shrugged, amazed that our toddler had soaked up vocabulary we’d never intentionally taught him.
In Deuteronomy 6, God encouraged His people to be intentional about teaching younger generations to know and obey the Scriptures. As the Israelites increased their knowledge of God, they and their children would be more likely to grow in reverence of Him and to enjoy the rewards that come through knowing Him intimately, loving Him completely, and following Him obediently (vv. 2–5).
By intentionally saturating our hearts and our minds with Scripture (v. 6), we will be better prepared to share God’s love and truth with children during our everyday activities (v. 7). Leading by example, we can equip and encourage young people to recognize and respect the authority and relevance of God’s unchanging truth (vv. 8–9).
As God’s words flow naturally from our hearts and out of our mouths, we can leave a strong legacy of faith to be passed down from generation to generation (4:9).
The words we take in determine the words we speak, live by, and pass on to those around us.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow
…what shall I say? "Father, save Me from this hour"? But for this purpose I came to this hour. "Father, glorify Your name." —John 12:27-28
As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person’s shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
A fanatic is one who entrenches himself in invincible ignorance. Baffled to Fight Better, 59 R
When our daughter Jenna was five years old, I took her to get a bike. And Andrea, age three, decided she wanted one as well. I explained to her she was too young for a two-wheeler. That when she was older she would get a bike too. No luck. She still wanted a bike. She turned her head and said nothing. Finally I sighed and said this time her daddy knew best.
Her response? She screamed it loud enough for everyone in the store to hear…“Then I want a new daddy!” Andrea, with three-year-old reasoning powers, couldn’t believe that a new bike would be anything less than ideal for her. And the one to grant that bliss was sitting on his hands.
If you’ve heard the silence of God, you may learn that the problem is not as much in God’s silence as it is in your ability to hear and your capacity to understand!
From Dad Time
Haggai 2
This Temple Will End Up Better Than It Started Out
1-3 On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the Word of God came through the prophet Haggai: “Tell Governor Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and High Priest Joshua son of Jehozadak and all the people: ‘Is there anyone here who saw the Temple the way it used to be, all glorious? And what do you see now? Not much, right?
4-5 “‘So get to work, Zerubbabel!’—God is speaking.
“‘Get to work, Joshua son of Jehozadak—high priest!’
“‘Get to work, all you people!’—God is speaking.
“‘Yes, get to work! For I am with you.’ The God-of-the-Angel-Armies is speaking! ‘Put into action the word I covenanted with you when you left Egypt. I’m living and breathing among you right now. Don’t be timid. Don’t hold back.’
6-7 “This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies said: ‘Before you know it, I will shake up sky and earth, ocean and fields. And I’ll shake down all the godless nations. They’ll bring bushels of wealth and I will fill this Temple with splendor.’ God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.
8 ‘I own the silver,
I own the gold.’
Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
9 “‘This Temple is going to end up far better than it started out, a glorious beginning but an even more glorious finish: a place in which I will hand out wholeness and holiness.’ Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.”
10-12 On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month (again, this was in the second year of Darius), God’s Message came to Haggai: “God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: Consult the priests for a ruling. If someone carries a piece of sacred meat in his pocket, meat that is set apart for sacrifice on the altar, and the pocket touches a loaf of bread, a dish of stew, a bottle of wine or oil, or any other food, will these foods be made holy by such contact?”
The priests said, “No.”
13 Then Haggai said, “How about someone who is contaminated by touching a corpse—if that person touches one of these foods, will it be contaminated?”
The priests said, “Yes, it will be contaminated.”
14 Then Haggai said, “‘So, this people is contaminated. Their nation is contaminated. Everything they do is contaminated. Whatever they do for me is contaminated.’ God says so.
15-17 “‘Think back. Before you set out to lay the first foundation stones for the rebuilding of my Temple, how did it go with you? Isn’t it true that your foot-dragging, halfhearted efforts at rebuilding the Temple of God were reflected in a sluggish, halfway return on your crops—half the grain you were used to getting, half the wine? I hit you with drought and blight and hail. Everything you were doing got hit. But it didn’t seem to faze you. You continued to ignore me.’ God’s Decree.
18-19 “‘Now think ahead from this same date—this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Think ahead from when the Temple rebuilding was launched. Has anything in your fields—vine, fig tree, pomegranate, olive tree—failed to flourish? From now on you can count on a blessing.’”
20-21 God’s Message came a second time to Haggai on that most memorable day, the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month: “Speak to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah:
21-23 “‘I am about to shake up everything, to turn everything upside down and start over from top to bottom—overthrow governments, destroy foreign powers, dismantle the world of weapons and armaments, throw armies into confusion, so that they end up killing one another. And on that day’”—this is God’s Message—“‘I will take you, O Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, as my personal servant and I will set you as a signet ring, the sign of my sovereign presence and authority. I’ve looked over the field and chosen you for this work.’” The Message of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Read: Deuteronomy 6:1–9
1-2 This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you’re about to cross into to possess. This is so that you’ll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I’m commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives.
3 Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.
4 Attention, Israel!
God, our God! God the one and only!
5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.
INSIGHT:
Deuteronomy 6:4–9, known as the Shema (from the Hebrew for “hear,” v. 4), has been called the Creed of Ancient Israel. It emphasizes the Jewish belief in one God and the importance of transmitting faith in Him to the next generation. As believers in Christ, we can find creative ways to remind others of God’s truths. We begin by saturating ourselves with the Scriptures. Then we can look for teachable moments throughout the day to instruct others.
What are some ways you can remind the next generation of spiritual truths?
Soaking Up God’s Word
By Xochitl Dixon
These commandments that I give to you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Deuteronomy 6:6–7
When our son Xavier was a toddler, we took a family trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. As we entered the building, I pointed to a large sculpture suspended from the ceiling. “Look. A humpback whale.”
Xavier’s eyes widened. “Enormous,” he said.
We can leave a legacy of faith to future generations.
My husband turned to me. “How does he know that word?”
“He must have heard us say it.” I shrugged, amazed that our toddler had soaked up vocabulary we’d never intentionally taught him.
In Deuteronomy 6, God encouraged His people to be intentional about teaching younger generations to know and obey the Scriptures. As the Israelites increased their knowledge of God, they and their children would be more likely to grow in reverence of Him and to enjoy the rewards that come through knowing Him intimately, loving Him completely, and following Him obediently (vv. 2–5).
By intentionally saturating our hearts and our minds with Scripture (v. 6), we will be better prepared to share God’s love and truth with children during our everyday activities (v. 7). Leading by example, we can equip and encourage young people to recognize and respect the authority and relevance of God’s unchanging truth (vv. 8–9).
As God’s words flow naturally from our hearts and out of our mouths, we can leave a strong legacy of faith to be passed down from generation to generation (4:9).
The words we take in determine the words we speak, live by, and pass on to those around us.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow
…what shall I say? "Father, save Me from this hour"? But for this purpose I came to this hour. "Father, glorify Your name." —John 12:27-28
As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person’s shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
A fanatic is one who entrenches himself in invincible ignorance. Baffled to Fight Better, 59 R
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Haggai 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A Song for Dad
Psalm 127:3 says: “Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift? . . .His generous legacy?”
I remember many years ago when I was at a conference. I called home and talked with Denalyn and the girls. Jenna was about five years old at the time and said she had a special treat for me. She took the phone over to the piano and began to play an original composition.
From a musical standpoint, everything was wrong with the song. She pounded more than she played. There was more random than rhythm in the piece. The lyrics didn’t rhyme. The syntax was sinful. Technically the song was a failure. But to me, the song was a masterpiece. Why? Because she wrote it for me.
You are a great daddy. I miss you so much.
When you’re away I’m very sad and I cry.
Please come home very soon.
What dad wouldn’t like that? Your heavenly Father feels the same when he hears you talk to him.
From Dad Time
Haggai 1
Caught Up with Taking Care of Your Own Houses
On the first day of the sixth month of the second year in the reign of King Darius of Persia, God’s Message was delivered by the prophet Haggai to the governor of Judah, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and to the high priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak:
2 A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: “The people procrastinate. They say this isn’t the right time to rebuild my Temple, the Temple of God.”
3-4 Shortly after that, God said more and Haggai spoke it: “How is it that it’s the ‘right time’ for you to live in your fine new homes while the Home, God’s Temple, is in ruins?”
5-6 And then a little later, God-of-the-Angel-Armies spoke out again:
“Take a good, hard look at your life.
Think it over.
You have spent a lot of money,
but you haven’t much to show for it.
You keep filling your plates,
but you never get filled up.
You keep drinking and drinking and drinking,
but you’re always thirsty.
You put on layer after layer of clothes,
but you can’t get warm.
And the people who work for you,
what are they getting out of it?
Not much—
a leaky, rusted-out bucket, that’s what.
7 That’s why God-of-the-Angel-Armies said:
“Take a good, hard look at your life.
Think it over.”
8-9 Then God said:
“Here’s what I want you to do:
Climb into the hills and cut some timber.
Bring it down and rebuild the Temple.
Do it just for me. Honor me.
You’ve had great ambitions for yourselves,
but nothing has come of it.
The little you have brought to my Temple
I’ve blown away—there was nothing to it.
9-11 “And why?” (This is a Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, remember.) “Because while you’ve run around, caught up with taking care of your own houses, my Home is in ruins. That’s why. Because of your stinginess. And so I’ve given you a dry summer and a skimpy crop. I’ve matched your tight-fisted stinginess by decreeing a season of drought, drying up fields and hills, withering gardens and orchards, stunting vegetables and fruit. Nothing—not man or woman, not animal or crop—is going to thrive.”
12 Then the governor, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and the high priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak, and all the people with them listened, really listened, to the voice of their God. When God sent the prophet Haggai to them, they paid attention to him. In listening to Haggai, they honored God.
13 Then Haggai, God’s messenger, preached God’s Message to the people: “I am with you!” God’s Word.
14-15 This is how God got Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the people moving—got them working on the Temple of God-of-the-Angel-Armies. This happened on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Read: John 13:3–17
Jesus knew that the Father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God. So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron. When he got to Simon Peter, Peter said, “Master, you wash my feet?”
7 Jesus answered, “You don’t understand now what I’m doing, but it will be clear enough to you later.”
8 Peter persisted, “You’re not going to wash my feet—ever!”
Jesus said, “If I don’t wash you, you can’t be part of what I’m doing.”
9 “Master!” said Peter. “Not only my feet, then. Wash my hands! Wash my head!”
10-12 Jesus said, “If you’ve had a bath in the morning, you only need your feet washed now and you’re clean from head to toe. My concern, you understand, is holiness, not hygiene. So now you’re clean. But not every one of you.” (He knew who was betraying him. That’s why he said, “Not every one of you.”) After he had finished washing their feet, he took his robe, put it back on, and went back to his place at the table.
12-17 Then he said, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Master,’ and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other’s feet. I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What I’ve done, you do. I’m only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master; an employee doesn’t give orders to the employer. If you understand what I’m telling you, act like it—and live a blessed life.
INSIGHT:
In what ways does my heart reflect the serving spirit of the Savior? In what ways has my attitude been in contrast to His example of serving?
Here to Serve
By Dave Branon
[Jesus] poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet. John 13:5
It was time for our church to commission a new group of leaders. To symbolize their roles as servant-leaders, the church elders participated in a memorable foot-washing ceremony. Each of the leaders—including the pastor—washed each other’s feet as the congregation observed them.
What they did that day was modeled for us by Jesus Christ, as recorded in John 13. In that incident, which happened at what is called the Last Supper, Jesus “got up from the meal, . . . poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet” (John 13:4–5). Later, as Jesus was explaining to His disciples why He had done this, He said, “No servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (v. 16). He also said, “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27).
Dear Lord, help me serve others.
If it is not below Jesus’s dignity to do such a lowly task, it is not below any of us to serve others. What an amazing example He set for all of us. Indeed, He “did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). He showed us what it means to be a leader and a servant. That’s Jesus, the One who serves.
Dear Lord, help me serve others. Guide me to set aside my personal interests and desires to provide help to those who need it.
No deed is small when done for Christ.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Reconciling Yourself to the Fact of Sin
This is your hour, and the power of darkness. —Luke 22:53
Not being reconciled to the fact of sin— not recognizing it and refusing to deal with it— produces all the disasters in life. You may talk about the lofty virtues of human nature, but there is something in human nature that will mockingly laugh in the face of every principle you have. If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness, something downright hateful and wrong, in human beings, when it attacks your life, instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it and say that it is of no use to battle against it. Have you taken this “hour, and the power of darkness” into account, or do you have a view of yourself which includes no recognition of sin whatsoever? In your human relationships and friendships, have you reconciled yourself to the fact of sin? If not, just around the next corner you will find yourself trapped and you will compromise with it. But if you will reconcile yourself to the fact of sin, you will realize the danger immediately and say, “Yes, I see what this sin would mean.” The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship— it simply establishes a mutual respect for the fact that the basis of sinful life is disastrous. Always beware of any assessment of life which does not recognize the fact that there is sin.
Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical nor suspicious, because He had absolute trust in what He could do for human nature. The pure man or woman is the one who is shielded from harm, not the innocent person. The so-called innocent man or woman is never safe. Men and women have no business trying to be innocent; God demands that they be pure and virtuous. Innocence is the characteristic of a child. Any person is deserving of blame if he is unwilling to reconcile himself to the fact of sin.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own. Biblical Ethics, 99 R
Psalm 127:3 says: “Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift? . . .His generous legacy?”
I remember many years ago when I was at a conference. I called home and talked with Denalyn and the girls. Jenna was about five years old at the time and said she had a special treat for me. She took the phone over to the piano and began to play an original composition.
From a musical standpoint, everything was wrong with the song. She pounded more than she played. There was more random than rhythm in the piece. The lyrics didn’t rhyme. The syntax was sinful. Technically the song was a failure. But to me, the song was a masterpiece. Why? Because she wrote it for me.
You are a great daddy. I miss you so much.
When you’re away I’m very sad and I cry.
Please come home very soon.
What dad wouldn’t like that? Your heavenly Father feels the same when he hears you talk to him.
From Dad Time
Haggai 1
Caught Up with Taking Care of Your Own Houses
On the first day of the sixth month of the second year in the reign of King Darius of Persia, God’s Message was delivered by the prophet Haggai to the governor of Judah, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and to the high priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak:
2 A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: “The people procrastinate. They say this isn’t the right time to rebuild my Temple, the Temple of God.”
3-4 Shortly after that, God said more and Haggai spoke it: “How is it that it’s the ‘right time’ for you to live in your fine new homes while the Home, God’s Temple, is in ruins?”
5-6 And then a little later, God-of-the-Angel-Armies spoke out again:
“Take a good, hard look at your life.
Think it over.
You have spent a lot of money,
but you haven’t much to show for it.
You keep filling your plates,
but you never get filled up.
You keep drinking and drinking and drinking,
but you’re always thirsty.
You put on layer after layer of clothes,
but you can’t get warm.
And the people who work for you,
what are they getting out of it?
Not much—
a leaky, rusted-out bucket, that’s what.
7 That’s why God-of-the-Angel-Armies said:
“Take a good, hard look at your life.
Think it over.”
8-9 Then God said:
“Here’s what I want you to do:
Climb into the hills and cut some timber.
Bring it down and rebuild the Temple.
Do it just for me. Honor me.
You’ve had great ambitions for yourselves,
but nothing has come of it.
The little you have brought to my Temple
I’ve blown away—there was nothing to it.
9-11 “And why?” (This is a Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, remember.) “Because while you’ve run around, caught up with taking care of your own houses, my Home is in ruins. That’s why. Because of your stinginess. And so I’ve given you a dry summer and a skimpy crop. I’ve matched your tight-fisted stinginess by decreeing a season of drought, drying up fields and hills, withering gardens and orchards, stunting vegetables and fruit. Nothing—not man or woman, not animal or crop—is going to thrive.”
12 Then the governor, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, and the high priest, Joshua son of Jehozadak, and all the people with them listened, really listened, to the voice of their God. When God sent the prophet Haggai to them, they paid attention to him. In listening to Haggai, they honored God.
13 Then Haggai, God’s messenger, preached God’s Message to the people: “I am with you!” God’s Word.
14-15 This is how God got Zerubbabel, Joshua, and all the people moving—got them working on the Temple of God-of-the-Angel-Armies. This happened on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Read: John 13:3–17
Jesus knew that the Father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God. So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron. When he got to Simon Peter, Peter said, “Master, you wash my feet?”
7 Jesus answered, “You don’t understand now what I’m doing, but it will be clear enough to you later.”
8 Peter persisted, “You’re not going to wash my feet—ever!”
Jesus said, “If I don’t wash you, you can’t be part of what I’m doing.”
9 “Master!” said Peter. “Not only my feet, then. Wash my hands! Wash my head!”
10-12 Jesus said, “If you’ve had a bath in the morning, you only need your feet washed now and you’re clean from head to toe. My concern, you understand, is holiness, not hygiene. So now you’re clean. But not every one of you.” (He knew who was betraying him. That’s why he said, “Not every one of you.”) After he had finished washing their feet, he took his robe, put it back on, and went back to his place at the table.
12-17 Then he said, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Master,’ and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other’s feet. I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What I’ve done, you do. I’m only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master; an employee doesn’t give orders to the employer. If you understand what I’m telling you, act like it—and live a blessed life.
INSIGHT:
In what ways does my heart reflect the serving spirit of the Savior? In what ways has my attitude been in contrast to His example of serving?
Here to Serve
By Dave Branon
[Jesus] poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet. John 13:5
It was time for our church to commission a new group of leaders. To symbolize their roles as servant-leaders, the church elders participated in a memorable foot-washing ceremony. Each of the leaders—including the pastor—washed each other’s feet as the congregation observed them.
What they did that day was modeled for us by Jesus Christ, as recorded in John 13. In that incident, which happened at what is called the Last Supper, Jesus “got up from the meal, . . . poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet” (John 13:4–5). Later, as Jesus was explaining to His disciples why He had done this, He said, “No servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (v. 16). He also said, “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27).
Dear Lord, help me serve others.
If it is not below Jesus’s dignity to do such a lowly task, it is not below any of us to serve others. What an amazing example He set for all of us. Indeed, He “did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). He showed us what it means to be a leader and a servant. That’s Jesus, the One who serves.
Dear Lord, help me serve others. Guide me to set aside my personal interests and desires to provide help to those who need it.
No deed is small when done for Christ.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Reconciling Yourself to the Fact of Sin
This is your hour, and the power of darkness. —Luke 22:53
Not being reconciled to the fact of sin— not recognizing it and refusing to deal with it— produces all the disasters in life. You may talk about the lofty virtues of human nature, but there is something in human nature that will mockingly laugh in the face of every principle you have. If you refuse to agree with the fact that there is wickedness and selfishness, something downright hateful and wrong, in human beings, when it attacks your life, instead of reconciling yourself to it, you will compromise with it and say that it is of no use to battle against it. Have you taken this “hour, and the power of darkness” into account, or do you have a view of yourself which includes no recognition of sin whatsoever? In your human relationships and friendships, have you reconciled yourself to the fact of sin? If not, just around the next corner you will find yourself trapped and you will compromise with it. But if you will reconcile yourself to the fact of sin, you will realize the danger immediately and say, “Yes, I see what this sin would mean.” The recognition of sin does not destroy the basis of friendship— it simply establishes a mutual respect for the fact that the basis of sinful life is disastrous. Always beware of any assessment of life which does not recognize the fact that there is sin.
Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical nor suspicious, because He had absolute trust in what He could do for human nature. The pure man or woman is the one who is shielded from harm, not the innocent person. The so-called innocent man or woman is never safe. Men and women have no business trying to be innocent; God demands that they be pure and virtuous. Innocence is the characteristic of a child. Any person is deserving of blame if he is unwilling to reconcile himself to the fact of sin.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own. Biblical Ethics, 99 R
Friday, June 23, 2017
1 John 5, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS DOING WHAT’S BEST FOR US
God is at work in each of us whether we know it or not, whether we want it or not. Lamentations 3:33 says, “He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way.” He doesn’t delight in our sufferings, but He delights in our development. It’s what Paul pointed out in Philippians 1:6 when he wrote, “God began doing a good work in you, and I am sure He will continue until it is finished when Jesus Christ comes again.”
Don’t see your struggle as an interruption to life but as preparation for life. No one said the road would be easy or painless. But God will use this mess for something good. This trouble you are in isn’t punishment, it’s training. It is the normal experience of children. God is doing what’s best for us, training us to live God’s holy best!
From You’ll Get Through This
1 John 5
1-3 Every person who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is God-begotten. If we love the One who conceives the child, we’ll surely love the child who was conceived. The reality test on whether or not we love God’s children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome.
The Power That Brings the World to Its Knees
4-5 Every God-begotten person conquers the world’s ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world’s ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God.
6-8 Jesus—the Divine Christ! He experienced a life-giving birth and a death-killing death. Not only birth from the womb, but baptismal birth of his ministry and sacrificial death. And all the while the Spirit is confirming the truth, the reality of God’s presence at Jesus’ baptism and crucifixion, bringing those occasions alive for us. A triple testimony: the Spirit, the Baptism, the Crucifixion. And the three in perfect agreement.
9-10 If we take human testimony at face value, how much more should we be reassured when God gives testimony as he does here, testifying concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God inwardly confirms God’s testimony. Whoever refuses to believe in effect calls God a liar, refusing to believe God’s own testimony regarding his Son.
11-12 This is the testimony in essence: God gave us eternal life; the life is in his Son. So, whoever has the Son, has life; whoever rejects the Son, rejects life.
The Reality, Not the Illusion
13-15 My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he’s listening. And if we’re confident that he’s listening, we know that what we’ve asked for is as good as ours.
16-17 For instance, if we see a Christian believer sinning (clearly I’m not talking about those who make a practice of sin in a way that is “fatal,” leading to eternal death), we ask for God’s help and he gladly gives it, gives life to the sinner whose sin is not fatal. There is such a thing as a fatal sin, and I’m not urging you to pray about that. Everything we do wrong is sin, but not all sin is fatal.
18-21 We know that none of the God-begotten makes a practice of sin—fatal sin. The God-begotten are also the God-protected. The Evil One can’t lay a hand on them. We know that we are held firm by God; it’s only the people of the world who continue in the grip of the Evil One. And we know that the Son of God came so we could recognize and understand the truth of God—what a gift!—and we are living in the Truth itself, in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. This Jesus is both True God and Real Life. Dear children, be on guard against all clever facsimiles.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 23, 2017
Read: Romans 12:3–8
I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.
6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
INSIGHT:
There are five listings of spiritual gifts in the New Testament: Romans 12:6–8; 1 Corinthians 12:7–11; 12:28–30; Ephesians 4:9–11; and 1 Peter 4:11. In each of these lists the emphasis is not on how many different types of gifts there are, but on how we are to use them in a loving way that promotes unity in the church, builds up the spiritual maturity of the believers, and brings glory to the Lord. To achieve this, Paul tells us not to think too highly or too lowly of ourselves (Rom. 12:3). We are to use our spiritual giftedness in humility (v. 3) and embrace diversity in the body of Christ with sincere love (v. 9) and mutual respect (v. 10).
How has God gifted you? How can you use your spiritual gifts to promote unity and harmony in the church?
Playing in Concert
By David C. McCasland
So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. Romans 12:5–6
During our granddaughter’s school band concert, I was impressed by how well this group of 11- and 12-year-olds played together. If each of them had wanted to be a solo performer, they could not have achieved individually what the band did collectively. The woodwinds, brass, and percussion sections all played their parts and the result was beautiful music!
To the followers of Jesus in Rome, Paul wrote, “In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us” (Rom. 12:5–6). Among the gifts Paul mentioned are prophecy, service, teaching, encouragement, giving, leadership, and mercy (vv. 7–8). Each gift is to be exercised freely for the good of all (1 Cor. 12:7).
Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10
One definition of in concert is “agreement in design or plan; combined action; harmony or accord.” That’s the Lord’s plan for us as His children through faith in Jesus Christ. “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves” (v. 10). The goal is cooperation, not competition.
In a sense, we are “on stage” before a watching and listening world every day. There are no soloists in God’s concert band, but every instrument is essential. The music is best when we each play our part in unity with others.
Lord, You are the Conductor of our lives. We want to play Your song of love and grace in concert with Your children today.
There are no soloists in God’s orchestra.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 23, 2017
“Acquainted With Grief”
He is…a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. —Isaiah 53:3
We are not “acquainted with grief” in the same way our Lord was acquainted with it. We endure it and live through it, but we do not become intimate with it. At the beginning of our lives we do not bring ourselves to the point of dealing with the reality of sin. We look at life through the eyes of reason and say that if a person will control his instincts, and educate himself, he can produce a life that will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we continue on through life, we find the presence of something which we have not yet taken into account, namely, sin— and it upsets all of our thinking and our plans. Sin has made the foundation of our thinking unpredictable, uncontrollable, and irrational.
We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue— if sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine— that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms with this fact of sin. It is the only explanation why Jesus Christ came to earth, and it is the explanation of the grief and sorrow of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally. The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 23, 2017
Blooming Too Soon - #7945
When you live in the Northeastern U. S. like we did, you usually pack up your shorts and T-shirts about November and file them under "See you in April." But it was January, and that's a big winter month where we were living and people were suddenly all over the place in their shorts and their summer clothes. It was 74 degrees! We figured either our calendar or our thermometer were wacky, but they both were right. It was a great experience - June in January. Unfortunately, the weather fooled the bushes and flowers in our yard. They felt the warm temperature and said, "Ooo, this feels good. Must be spring. Time to wake up!" Sure enough, the buds started appearing all over our yard. But I wanted to yell at them, "Not yet, guys! This isn't going to last! It's too soon! It's an ambush! This isn't going to work!" Unfortunately, I don't speak "Plant" fluently. And when the inevitable freezing temperatures returned, those poor early-bloomers were in for a terrible shock.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Blooming Too Soon."
Ecclesiastes 3:1 - "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." God has set up everything in life to run in seasons, including your life. And things that happen before their season - a season He determines - are not going to turn out well.
So God follows in verse 11 with a fundamental principle of happy endings, "He has made everything beautiful in its time." Problem: His time is almost always later than our time. So we get impatient. We think it isn't going to happen or that we need to interfere to speed things up. And just like those early January blossoms, we get ahead of the season. We try to make it bloom too soon and, though it may look good for a little while, it ends up not working.
When it comes to the plan God is working out for your life, if you rush it, you ruin it. But, again like our early blooming blossoms on a warm winter day, you may be saying, "Sure feels to me like it's time for it to happen." And you get ahead of the timing of Almighty God.
Romance for example; that's one area where a lot of people just can't wait for God to do it in His time. Maybe you've been trying to make things happen romantically, you've lowered your standards to speed up the process, but it's not God's time yet and it's probably not God's person. It's your time, but it's not God's time, and it's going to turn out all wrong.
Maybe there's a financial situation where you feel you can't wait any longer for God to come through. You can't wait for Jehovah-jireh any longer. You're going to figure out how to solve this yourself. There was a time when our ministry was going through a particularly difficult time financially and we had a deadline that was only a couple days away. One friend offered to loan us money to meet the need. Man, I appreciated that kind of concern tremendously, but I said, "Let's not do anything yet. I've really prayed that God would meet the need, and I don't want to interfere with what He's going to do." You know what? Praise God, He sent us the miracle funds just in time.
My friend said, "I guess I was trying to do an Abraham and Sarah." Actually, he was just trying to show us some wonderful love, but I got what he meant. He was referring to that time when Abraham and Sarah couldn't wait anymore for God to give them the son He had promised them, even though they were too old to have children. And they arranged for a surrogate mother scheme that messed up their family royally. All because they couldn't wait for God to do it in His way, in His time.
So whether it's a relationship, or finances, a ministry goal, getting justice or meeting a need. Wherever you're tempted to try to make it happen, don't. Just remember those blossoms whose instincts told them it was time when it wasn't. If it's blooming too soon, it probably isn't going to make it. But in God's time, which is probably later than yours, in His time, it will be beautiful.
God is at work in each of us whether we know it or not, whether we want it or not. Lamentations 3:33 says, “He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way.” He doesn’t delight in our sufferings, but He delights in our development. It’s what Paul pointed out in Philippians 1:6 when he wrote, “God began doing a good work in you, and I am sure He will continue until it is finished when Jesus Christ comes again.”
Don’t see your struggle as an interruption to life but as preparation for life. No one said the road would be easy or painless. But God will use this mess for something good. This trouble you are in isn’t punishment, it’s training. It is the normal experience of children. God is doing what’s best for us, training us to live God’s holy best!
From You’ll Get Through This
1 John 5
1-3 Every person who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is God-begotten. If we love the One who conceives the child, we’ll surely love the child who was conceived. The reality test on whether or not we love God’s children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome.
The Power That Brings the World to Its Knees
4-5 Every God-begotten person conquers the world’s ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world’s ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God.
6-8 Jesus—the Divine Christ! He experienced a life-giving birth and a death-killing death. Not only birth from the womb, but baptismal birth of his ministry and sacrificial death. And all the while the Spirit is confirming the truth, the reality of God’s presence at Jesus’ baptism and crucifixion, bringing those occasions alive for us. A triple testimony: the Spirit, the Baptism, the Crucifixion. And the three in perfect agreement.
9-10 If we take human testimony at face value, how much more should we be reassured when God gives testimony as he does here, testifying concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God inwardly confirms God’s testimony. Whoever refuses to believe in effect calls God a liar, refusing to believe God’s own testimony regarding his Son.
11-12 This is the testimony in essence: God gave us eternal life; the life is in his Son. So, whoever has the Son, has life; whoever rejects the Son, rejects life.
The Reality, Not the Illusion
13-15 My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he’s listening. And if we’re confident that he’s listening, we know that what we’ve asked for is as good as ours.
16-17 For instance, if we see a Christian believer sinning (clearly I’m not talking about those who make a practice of sin in a way that is “fatal,” leading to eternal death), we ask for God’s help and he gladly gives it, gives life to the sinner whose sin is not fatal. There is such a thing as a fatal sin, and I’m not urging you to pray about that. Everything we do wrong is sin, but not all sin is fatal.
18-21 We know that none of the God-begotten makes a practice of sin—fatal sin. The God-begotten are also the God-protected. The Evil One can’t lay a hand on them. We know that we are held firm by God; it’s only the people of the world who continue in the grip of the Evil One. And we know that the Son of God came so we could recognize and understand the truth of God—what a gift!—and we are living in the Truth itself, in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. This Jesus is both True God and Real Life. Dear children, be on guard against all clever facsimiles.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 23, 2017
Read: Romans 12:3–8
I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.
6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
INSIGHT:
There are five listings of spiritual gifts in the New Testament: Romans 12:6–8; 1 Corinthians 12:7–11; 12:28–30; Ephesians 4:9–11; and 1 Peter 4:11. In each of these lists the emphasis is not on how many different types of gifts there are, but on how we are to use them in a loving way that promotes unity in the church, builds up the spiritual maturity of the believers, and brings glory to the Lord. To achieve this, Paul tells us not to think too highly or too lowly of ourselves (Rom. 12:3). We are to use our spiritual giftedness in humility (v. 3) and embrace diversity in the body of Christ with sincere love (v. 9) and mutual respect (v. 10).
How has God gifted you? How can you use your spiritual gifts to promote unity and harmony in the church?
Playing in Concert
By David C. McCasland
So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. Romans 12:5–6
During our granddaughter’s school band concert, I was impressed by how well this group of 11- and 12-year-olds played together. If each of them had wanted to be a solo performer, they could not have achieved individually what the band did collectively. The woodwinds, brass, and percussion sections all played their parts and the result was beautiful music!
To the followers of Jesus in Rome, Paul wrote, “In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us” (Rom. 12:5–6). Among the gifts Paul mentioned are prophecy, service, teaching, encouragement, giving, leadership, and mercy (vv. 7–8). Each gift is to be exercised freely for the good of all (1 Cor. 12:7).
Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:10
One definition of in concert is “agreement in design or plan; combined action; harmony or accord.” That’s the Lord’s plan for us as His children through faith in Jesus Christ. “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves” (v. 10). The goal is cooperation, not competition.
In a sense, we are “on stage” before a watching and listening world every day. There are no soloists in God’s concert band, but every instrument is essential. The music is best when we each play our part in unity with others.
Lord, You are the Conductor of our lives. We want to play Your song of love and grace in concert with Your children today.
There are no soloists in God’s orchestra.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 23, 2017
“Acquainted With Grief”
He is…a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. —Isaiah 53:3
We are not “acquainted with grief” in the same way our Lord was acquainted with it. We endure it and live through it, but we do not become intimate with it. At the beginning of our lives we do not bring ourselves to the point of dealing with the reality of sin. We look at life through the eyes of reason and say that if a person will control his instincts, and educate himself, he can produce a life that will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we continue on through life, we find the presence of something which we have not yet taken into account, namely, sin— and it upsets all of our thinking and our plans. Sin has made the foundation of our thinking unpredictable, uncontrollable, and irrational.
We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue— if sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine— that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms with this fact of sin. It is the only explanation why Jesus Christ came to earth, and it is the explanation of the grief and sorrow of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally. The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 23, 2017
Blooming Too Soon - #7945
When you live in the Northeastern U. S. like we did, you usually pack up your shorts and T-shirts about November and file them under "See you in April." But it was January, and that's a big winter month where we were living and people were suddenly all over the place in their shorts and their summer clothes. It was 74 degrees! We figured either our calendar or our thermometer were wacky, but they both were right. It was a great experience - June in January. Unfortunately, the weather fooled the bushes and flowers in our yard. They felt the warm temperature and said, "Ooo, this feels good. Must be spring. Time to wake up!" Sure enough, the buds started appearing all over our yard. But I wanted to yell at them, "Not yet, guys! This isn't going to last! It's too soon! It's an ambush! This isn't going to work!" Unfortunately, I don't speak "Plant" fluently. And when the inevitable freezing temperatures returned, those poor early-bloomers were in for a terrible shock.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Blooming Too Soon."
Ecclesiastes 3:1 - "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." God has set up everything in life to run in seasons, including your life. And things that happen before their season - a season He determines - are not going to turn out well.
So God follows in verse 11 with a fundamental principle of happy endings, "He has made everything beautiful in its time." Problem: His time is almost always later than our time. So we get impatient. We think it isn't going to happen or that we need to interfere to speed things up. And just like those early January blossoms, we get ahead of the season. We try to make it bloom too soon and, though it may look good for a little while, it ends up not working.
When it comes to the plan God is working out for your life, if you rush it, you ruin it. But, again like our early blooming blossoms on a warm winter day, you may be saying, "Sure feels to me like it's time for it to happen." And you get ahead of the timing of Almighty God.
Romance for example; that's one area where a lot of people just can't wait for God to do it in His time. Maybe you've been trying to make things happen romantically, you've lowered your standards to speed up the process, but it's not God's time yet and it's probably not God's person. It's your time, but it's not God's time, and it's going to turn out all wrong.
Maybe there's a financial situation where you feel you can't wait any longer for God to come through. You can't wait for Jehovah-jireh any longer. You're going to figure out how to solve this yourself. There was a time when our ministry was going through a particularly difficult time financially and we had a deadline that was only a couple days away. One friend offered to loan us money to meet the need. Man, I appreciated that kind of concern tremendously, but I said, "Let's not do anything yet. I've really prayed that God would meet the need, and I don't want to interfere with what He's going to do." You know what? Praise God, He sent us the miracle funds just in time.
My friend said, "I guess I was trying to do an Abraham and Sarah." Actually, he was just trying to show us some wonderful love, but I got what he meant. He was referring to that time when Abraham and Sarah couldn't wait anymore for God to give them the son He had promised them, even though they were too old to have children. And they arranged for a surrogate mother scheme that messed up their family royally. All because they couldn't wait for God to do it in His way, in His time.
So whether it's a relationship, or finances, a ministry goal, getting justice or meeting a need. Wherever you're tempted to try to make it happen, don't. Just remember those blossoms whose instincts told them it was time when it wasn't. If it's blooming too soon, it probably isn't going to make it. But in God's time, which is probably later than yours, in His time, it will be beautiful.