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.
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