Max Lucado Daily: CERTAIN VICTORY
“It’s time to declare war on the pestilence that goes by the name, I can’t. It attacks our self-control with…I can’t keep a job and it attacks our marriages… I can’t forgive. It even attacks our faith…I can’t believe God cares for me.
Had Joshua mumbled those words, who would’ve blamed him? Joshua 1:1 begins with bad news, “Moses, my servant, is dead.” To lose Moses was to lose the cause. Imagine the dismay, the grief, the fear! And yet, God told Joshua, “Moses is dead. Now therefore, arise.” Moses may be dead, but God is alive! Even so, Joshua had reason to say, I can’t. Moses was dead. And the Canaanites ate folks like the Israelites for breakfast! But Joshua never declared defeat. God gave him reason for faith. Victory was certain because the victory was God’s! The same is true for you.
From Glory Days
1 Timothy 5
The Family of Faith
1-2 Don’t be harsh or impatient with an older man. Talk to him as you would your own father, and to the younger men as your brothers. Reverently honor an older woman as you would your mother, and the younger women as sisters.
3-8 Take care of widows who are destitute. If a widow has family members to take care of her, let them learn that religion begins at their own doorstep and that they should pay back with gratitude some of what they have received. This pleases God immensely. You can tell a legitimate widow by the way she has put all her hope in God, praying to him constantly for the needs of others as well as her own. But a widow who exploits people’s emotions and pocketbooks—well, there’s nothing to her. Tell these things to the people so that they will do the right thing in their extended family. Anyone who neglects to care for family members in need repudiates the faith. That’s worse than refusing to believe in the first place.
9-10 Sign some widows up for the special ministry of offering assistance. They will in turn receive support from the church. They must be over sixty, married only once, and have a reputation for helping out with children, strangers, tired Christians, the hurt and troubled.
11-15 Don’t put young widows on this list. No sooner will they get on than they’ll want to get off, obsessed with wanting to get a husband rather than serving Christ in this way. By breaking their word, they’re liable to go from bad to worse, frittering away their days on empty talk, gossip, and trivialities. No, I’d rather the young widows go ahead and get married in the first place, have children, manage their homes, and not give critics any foothold for finding fault. Some of them have already left and gone after Satan.
16 Any Christian woman who has widows in her family is responsible for them. They shouldn’t be dumped on the church. The church has its hands full already with widows who need help.
17-18 Give a bonus to leaders who do a good job, especially the ones who work hard at preaching and teaching. Scripture tells us, “Don’t muzzle a working ox” and “A worker deserves his pay.”
19 Don’t listen to a complaint against a leader that isn’t backed up by two or three responsible witnesses.
20 If anyone falls into sin, call that person on the carpet. Those who are inclined that way will know right off they can’t get by with it.
21-23 God and Jesus and angels all back me up in these instructions. Carry them out without favoritism, without taking sides. Don’t appoint people to church leadership positions too hastily. If a person is involved in some serious sins, you don’t want to become an unwitting accomplice. In any event, keep a close check on yourself. And don’t worry too much about what the critics will say. Go ahead and drink a little wine, for instance; it’s good for your digestion, good medicine for what ails you.
24-25 The sins of some people are blatant and march them right into court. The sins of others don’t show up until much later. The same with good deeds. Some you see right off, but none are hidden forever.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Read: Galatians 6:1–10
Nothing but the Cross
1-3 Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.
4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
6 Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.
7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.
INSIGHT:
We may be hesitant about allowing ourselves to start feeling the pain of those around us. So did Paul lead us into more than we can handle when he urged us to reach out to the needs of others? (Gal. 6:9). Let’s put his words in context. In the previous chapter he wrote extensively about the importance of living with a sense of liberty (5:1). He didn’t see love as a matter of duty and bondage; rather, life in the Spirit is a life of care and concern for others, enabled by the Spirit.
So are we having cold feet about the implications of being warmhearted? If so, maybe we need to accept those natural fears. But in the freedom of the Spirit we can learn to act out of our own heart rather than out of duty; we can act out of the grace God generously gives us to care for others (6:4–5).
Don’t Give Up
By David C. McCasland |
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
Bob Foster, my mentor and friend for more than fifty years, never gave up on me. His unchanging friendship and encouragement, even during my darkest times, helped carry me through.
We often find ourselves determined to reach out and help someone we know who is in great need. But when we fail to see improvement right away, our resolve can weaken and we may eventually give up. We discover that what we hoped would be an immediate change has become an ongoing process.
The apostle Paul urges us to be patient in helping one another through the stumbles and struggles of life. When he writes, “Carry each other’s burdens” and so “fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2), he is comparing our task to the work, time, and waiting it takes for a farmer to see a harvest.
Father in heaven, we ask for hope and perseverance to continue reaching out to others.
In prayer we call on God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” Ephesians 3:20
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
“Ready in Season”
Be ready in season and out of season. —2 Timothy 4:2
Many of us suffer from the unbalanced tendency to “be ready” only “out of season.” The season does not refer to time; it refers to us. This verse says, “Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season.” In other words, we should “be ready” whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would never do anything. There are some people who are totally unemployable in the spiritual realm. They are spiritually feeble and weak, and they refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that our relationship is right with God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.
One of the worst traps a Christian worker can fall into is to become obsessed with his own exceptional moments of inspiration. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you tend to say, “Now that I’ve experienced this moment, I will always be like this for God.” No, you will not, and God will make sure of that. Those times are entirely the gift of God. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best for God, as during those exceptional times, you actually become an intolerable burden on Him. You will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously aware of His inspiration to you at all times. If you make a god out of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life, never to return until you are obedient in the work He has placed closest to you, and until you have learned not to be obsessed with those exceptional moments He has given you.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence. Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Beautiful Fire - #7902
If it's about the Revolutionary War, I'll probably try to go there. My poor family has been dragged to more historical houses, battlefields, and Colonial restorations. Fortunately, we lived in the town where George Washington actually had his headquarters at one point during the War. So when they had a special militia re-enactment, we went to see it. But it was more than just muskets and bayonets. They had Colonial craftsmen there, too. Including the old blacksmith. He was there in the barn, next to his blazing fire. When I walked in, he was working on these big iron nails - which my wife thought would look nice as hooks and hangers on our mantle at home. They're still there. It was intriguing to watch the blacksmith do his work. Actually, he took a shapeless piece of iron, he heated it in that fire until it was red hot - and it was soft enough to shape - and then he hammered it into something that hunk of metal had never been before - something useful. I know. They're on our mantle, remember?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Beautiful Fire."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Isaiah 54:16. "See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work." God didn't just create the blacksmith; He is a blacksmith. At least, He has been in my life. He has put me through the fire at a number of points in my life so He could reshape me.
That may be what the Divine Blacksmith is doing in your life right now. That's why it's so hot. The stress, the pain, the demands, the pressure; they might be almost unbearable. And your soul might be crying out, "Why, God?" or "How much longer, God?"
Remember how the blacksmith works. He "fans the coals into flame." Why? So it - or you - can be shaped into "a weapon fit for its work." Here's how God works to make a child He loves more like Jesus and more of a "make a difference" person than they've ever been before. Make it hot...to make it soft...to make it useful. What the blacksmith does with a hunk of metal is what God does with lives like yours and mine. Make it hot to make it soft to make it useful.
Peter was writing to believers who had lost their homes and even their loved ones because of their loyalty to Christ. They were in the fire. And Peter says, "These (trials) have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Peter 1:7). The fire is not to burn you or melt you. It's to remove what's impure, to deepen your trust in God because there is no one else who can get you through this. And it's to increase your value.
The heat makes our heart softer and more pliable, like hot metal. Without the heat, we wouldn't change; we'd be in the same shape. In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul talks about going through pressure that was beyond his ability to endure, and hardships that brought deep despair, and then his perspective on why the fire happened. He says, "This happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead." Paul was a strong, stubborn, self-reliant man who would never surrender control, never learn to totally rely on God, if the fire hadn't made him soft enough to be reshaped.
I can't ask you to enjoy the fire you're going through. No, but I can encourage you to trust the Divine Blacksmith. He knows how much heat you can take. He knows the beautiful things He wants to do in you and through you, and that's what the fire's for. He's removing the ugly. He's recreating something beautiful.
The prayer in that old chorus says it pretty well, "Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me. Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me." He's making it hot to make you soft so He can make you more useful than you ever imagined you could be.