Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS THE PERFECT JUDGE
God occupies the only seat on the supreme court of heaven. He wears the robe and refuses to share the gavel. Paul wrote in Romans 12:19, “Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. ‘I’ll do the judging,’ says God. ‘I’ll take care of it.’”
Vigilantes displace and replace God. I’m not sure you can handle this one, Lord. You may punish too little or too slowly. I’ll take this into my hands, thank you. Is this what you want to say? Jesus didn’t. No one had a clearer sense of right and wrong than the perfect Son of God. In 1 Peter 2:23 we’re reminded, “When He suffered, He didn’t make any threats but left everything to the one who judges fairly.” Only God assesses accurate judgments. Perfect justice. Vengeance is His job. Leave your enemies in God’s hands!
From Facing Your Giants
Psalm 81
An Asaph Psalm
1-5 A song to our strong God!
a shout to the God of Jacob!
Anthems from the choir, music from the band,
sweet sounds from lute and harp,
Trumpets and trombones and horns:
it’s festival day, a feast to God!
A day decreed by God,
solemnly ordered by the God of Jacob.
He commanded Joseph to keep this day
so we’d never forget what he did in Egypt.
I hear this most gentle whisper from One
I never guessed would speak to me:
6-7 “I took the world off your shoulders,
freed you from a life of hard labor.
You called to me in your pain;
I got you out of a bad place.
I answered you from where the thunder hides,
I proved you at Meribah Fountain.
8-10 “Listen, dear ones—get this straight;
O Israel, don’t take this lightly.
Don’t take up with strange gods,
don’t worship the latest in gods.
I’m God, your God, the very God
who rescued you from doom in Egypt,
Then fed you all you could eat,
filled your hungry stomachs.
11-12 “But my people didn’t listen,
Israel paid no attention;
So I let go of the reins and told them, ‘Run!
Do it your own way!’
13-16 “Oh, dear people, will you listen to me now?
Israel, will you follow my map?
I’ll make short work of your enemies,
give your foes the back of my hand.
I’ll send the God-haters cringing like dogs,
never to be heard from again.
You’ll feast on my fresh-baked bread
spread with butter and rock-pure honey.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Read: 2 Samuel 22:17–20
But me he caught—reached all the way
from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,
the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down,
but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field;
I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!
INSIGHT:
As David’s years added up, his strength began to fail. Yet this was his chance to recall once again the many times the Lord had heard his cry for help and rescued him from trouble.
In the course of a wonderful—yet difficult—life, David knew the emotions of fear and adrenaline rush. As a young man, wild animals stalked his father’s sheep. Later there was the threat of Goliath, the murderous pursuit by Saul, and military battles on many fronts. In one of his last wars with the Philistines, David became exhausted. A Philistine thought this was his opportunity to kill the king of Israel. But one of David’s soldiers rushed to his side and killed the Philistine. It was a close call. After that, David’s men said, “Never again will you go out with us to battle, so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished” (2 Sam. 21:17). God had been so faithful to David that his soldiers made the mistake of thinking that without him they themselves would be defeated by their enemies.
Do we need to learn as they did that rescue comes only from the Lord? Mart DeHaan
Out of the Deep
By Kirsten Holmberg
He reached down from on high and took hold of me. 2 Samuel 22:17
I scanned the water intently, on alert for signs of trouble. During my six-hour shifts as a lifeguard, I watched from the side of the pool to ensure the safety of those swimming. Leaving my post, or even becoming lax in my attentiveness, could have grave consequences for those in the pool. If a swimmer was in danger of drowning due to injury or lack of skill, it was my responsibility to pluck them from the water and return them to safety on the pool deck.
After experiencing God’s aid in battle against the Philistines (2 Sam. 21:15–22), David likens his rescue to being drawn out of “deep waters” (22:17). David’s very life—and that of his men—was in serious danger from his enemies. God buoyed David as he was drowning in disaster. While lifeguards are paid to assure the safety of swimmers, God, on the other hand, saved David because of His delight in him (v. 20). My heart leaps for joy when I realize that God doesn’t watch over and protect me because He’s obliged to but because He wants to.
Thank You, Lord, for seeing my struggles and standing ready to save me.
When we feel overcome by the troubles of life, we can rest in the knowledge that God, our Lifeguard, sees our struggle and, because of His delight in us, watches over and protects us.
Thank You, Lord, for seeing my struggles and standing ready to save me. Help me to trust Your rescuing love more fully.
God delights in saving His children.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
The Way to Purity
Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart….For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man… —Matthew 15:18-20
Initially we trust in our ignorance, calling it innocence, and next we trust our innocence, calling it purity. Then when we hear these strong statements from our Lord, we shrink back, saying, “But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart.” We resent what He reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust the penetration of His Word into my heart, or would I prefer to trust my own “innocent ignorance”? If I will take an honest look at myself, becoming fully aware of my so-called innocence and putting it to the test, I am very likely to have a rude awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I will be appalled at the possibilities of the evil and the wrong within me. But as long as I remain under the false security of my own “innocence,” I am living in a fool’s paradise. If I have never been an openly rude and abusive person, the only reason is my own cowardice coupled with the sense of protection I receive from living a civilized life. But when I am open and completely exposed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis of me.
The only thing that truly provides protection is the redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will simply hand myself over to Him, I will never have to experience the terrible possibilities that lie within my heart. Purity is something far too deep for me to arrive at naturally. But when the Holy Spirit comes into me, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Spirit, which is absolute unblemished purity.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
For the past three hundred years men have been pointing out how similar Jesus Christ’s teachings are to other good teachings. We have to remember that Christianity, if it is not a supernatural miracle, is a sham. The Highest Good, 548 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
The Only Reason To Look Back - #7968
About every five years or so, I run into my scrapbook while I'm going through this closet. Oh, yeah, there's the geeky-looking, eighth-grader there, holding his county spelling bee trophy. Yea! And there's the chubby little Ronnie in his Indian outfit on a vacation in Minnesota. Yeah. And, the picture of our championship Bible Quiz Team. Now it's also a lot of fun when we pull out the old photos of our family. Decades of Christmas eves, scenes from scores and scores of vacation adventures, sons in football uniforms, a daughter all dressed up for her first recital. Ah, the memories. Now it isn't that we haven't had some not-so-great things happen. There was the automobile accident, the painful injuries, the bouts with various sicknesses. You know what? Somehow they just didn't make it into the memory book.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Only Reason To Look Back".
Now, all of us have an album of memories stored away. Not just in a book, I mean in the memory banks in our mind. And some of us think a lot about the things in the past, and we talk about them, too. But which things? Well, God has something important, even liberating, to say about what's in your past, especially the things you keep bringing out and bringing up again and again.
Our word for today from the Word of God is Isaiah 43 beginning at verse 16. God is talking to people who have been through a lot of pain; people who have lost a lot of things they care about. There are some parts of the past God says they need to remember, and there are some they need to forget. Here we go, "This is what the Lord says, He who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters." Now God says remember that stuff. He goes on, "Forget the former things; and do not dwell on the past." In other words, don't keep your pictures of the ugly stuff.
He goes on to say, "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland." Now God says, I don't want you to miss the glorious things I'm about to do for you because you've got your nose buried in your pictures from the past!
Now, I wonder if your memory album has a lot of mental pictures of the painful moments in your life. I wonder if some of the folks close to you are maybe tired of you going over, and over, the times you've been hurt and wronged. God's Word is clear - forget that stuff. What kind of memory album is filled with pictures of the ugly times? If you dwell on the past, if you dwell in the past, you may miss the new things God wants to do with your future.
But there's one good reason to look back - to relive those countless moments in your life you can praise God for! The parted seas, the conquered obstacles, the divine interventions, the deliverances, the miraculous provisions, ways in the desert, streams where it looked like there'd be nothing for your need. Wow! In Isaiah 43:20-21, God says, "I provide water in the desert...to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise."
So which past are you going to dwell on? The painful past? Well, that will just keep the pain alive right into your future. Or are you going to dwell on the praiseful past; all the ways your loving God's been there for you over and over again? Those memories will get you ready for the next exciting episode in your life with this awesome God of yours. And it will open your eyes to the new thing He's doing right in front of you.
Our family albums aren't full of images of the bad times. The images we keep going over are the good times. That's how it needs to be in that photo album in your heart, don't you think? The only reason to look back is to once again relive your memories of life with your wonderful, miraculous Heavenly Father.
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