Max Lucado Daily: HIS FIRST CHOICE
You are God’s child. He saw you, picked you, and placed you! Jesus said, “You did not choose me, I chose you!” You are God’s child! Replacement or fill-in? Hardly. You are His first choice. The choice wasn’t obligatory, required, compulsory, forced, or compelled. He selected you because He wanted to. You are His open, willful, voluntary choice. He walked onto the auction block where you stood, and He proclaimed, “This child is mine.”
1 Peter 1:19 says, He bought you “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” You are His child forever. Your struggles will not last forever—but you will. The promise is in 2 Timothy 2:12. “If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.” Believe it…clutch it…tattoo it on the interior of your heart! You are God’s child!
From You’ll Get Through This
1 John 1
1-2 From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.
3-4 We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!
Walk in the Light
5 This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him.
6-7 If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.
8-10 If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 09, 2017
Read: 2 Chronicles 20:14–22
14-17 Then Jahaziel was moved by the Spirit of God to speak from the midst of the congregation. (Jahaziel was the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah the Levite of the Asaph clan.) He said, “Attention everyone—all of you from out of town, all you from Jerusalem, and you King Jehoshaphat—God’s word: Don’t be afraid; don’t pay any mind to this vandal horde. This is God’s war, not yours. Tomorrow you’ll go after them; see, they’re already on their way up the slopes of Ziz; you’ll meet them at the end of the ravine near the wilderness of Jeruel. You won’t have to lift a hand in this battle; just stand firm, Judah and Jerusalem, and watch God’s saving work for you take shape. Don’t be afraid, don’t waver. March out boldly tomorrow—God is with you.”
18-19 Then Jehoshaphat knelt down, bowing with his face to the ground. All Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping God. The Levites (both Kohathites and Korahites) stood to their feet to praise God, the God of Israel; they praised at the top of their lungs!
20 They were up early in the morning, ready to march into the wilderness of Tekoa. As they were leaving, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Listen Judah and Jerusalem! Listen to what I have to say! Believe firmly in God, your God, and your lives will be firm! Believe in your prophets and you’ll come out on top!”
21 After talking it over with the people, Jehoshaphat appointed a choir for God; dressed in holy robes, they were to march ahead of the troops, singing,
Give thanks to God,
His love never quits.
22-23 As soon as they started shouting and praising, God set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir as they were attacking Judah, and they all ended up dead. The Ammonites and Moabites mistakenly attacked those from Mount Seir and massacred them. Then, further confused, they went at each other, and all ended up killed.
A Reason to Sing
By Amy Peterson
Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. Psalm 47:6
Singing changes the brain! Some studies show that when we sing, our bodies release hormones that relieve anxiety and stress. Other research indicates that when a group of people sings together, their heartbeats actually synchronize with each other.
The apostle Paul’s writing encourages the church to speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19). And the Bible repeats, “Sing praise” more than fifty times.
Praising God has power to change our thoughts, our hearts, and our lives.
In 2 Chronicles 20, we read a story of God’s people demonstrating their trust in God by singing as they marched into battle. Enemies were heading toward the people of Judah. Alarmed, King Jehoshaphat called everyone together. He led the community in intense prayer. They didn’t eat or drink, but only prayed, “We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (v. 12). The next day, they set out. They weren’t led by their fiercest warriors, but by their choir. They believed God’s promise that they would be delivered without having to fight at all (v. 17).
While they sang and walked toward the conflict, their enemies fought each other! By the time God’s people reached the battlefield, the fighting had ended. God saved His people as they marched by faith toward the unknown, singing His praises.
God encourages us to praise Him for good reasons. Whether or not we are marching into battle, praising God has power to change our thoughts, our hearts, and our lives.
God, we praise Your everlasting love and faithfulness! You protect and guide us, and we trust You with our lives.
Hearts in tune with God sing His praises.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 09, 2017
Then What’s Next To Do?
Everyone who asks receives… —Luke 11:10
Ask if you have not received. There is nothing more difficult than asking. We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, and even suffer as a result of their going unfulfilled, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask. It is the sense of not being spiritually real that causes us to ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of your total insufficiency and poverty? “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God…” (James 1:5), but be sure that you do lack wisdom before you ask. You cannot bring yourself to the point of spiritual reality anytime you choose. The best thing to do, once you realize you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit, basing your request on the promise of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is the one who makes everything that Jesus did for you real in your life.
“Everyone who asks receives….” This does not mean that you will not get if you do not ask, but it means that until you come to the point of asking, you will not receive from God (seeMatthew 5:45). To be able to receive means that you have to come into the relationship of a child of God, and then you comprehend and appreciate mentally, morally, and with spiritual understanding, that these things come from God.
“If any of you lacks wisdom….” If you realize that you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality— do not put the blinders of reason on again. The word ask actually means “beg.” Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are poor enough spiritually to show our interest. Yet we will never receive if we ask with a certain result in mind, because we are asking out of our lust, not out of our poverty. A pauper does not ask out of any reason other than the completely hopeless and painful condition of his poverty. He is not ashamed to beg— blessed are the paupers in spirit (see Matthew 5:3).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us. Disciples Indeed, 388 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 09, 2017
No Blood, No Life - 7935
There were only two words in the headline in USA Today, but most of us understand the urgency of those two words: "Blood needed!" They were talking about an alarming shortage of blood available in blood banks due to a severe winter, a holiday season, and a bad flu season. One spokesman for the Association of Blood Banks said, "If you've had a bad car accident or a couple of gunshot wounds, you're in a world of trouble." I guess so. There is no fact more basic to human life – without the blood you need, you die.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Blood, No Life."
We understand the need for blood physically. But if God didn't explain it to us, we'd never understand our need for blood to live spiritually and to live eternally after we die. Our word for today from the Word of God tells us about it and it's a good thing. It's in Hebrews 9:22. It says, "Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness." That's pretty straight out isn't it?
The reason forgiveness is so critical is because that's the only way to have the sins of your life removed from God's book. There's no chance of heaven for you or me if we try to go there with our sin, and there's no way to get rid of our sin without God's forgiveness. And here God tells us there's no way to get that forgiveness without blood – blood that is shed for the death penalty that sin carries.
For God's ancient people, the Jews, that meant a system of regular animal sacrifices where the shedding of a substitute's blood – the blood of that animal – could provide a way to be forgiven. But it was only temporary and it was very incomplete because, as God says later in Hebrews, "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). But then God sent to earth the only One who was perfect enough to be the substitute for all of us, shedding His blood for us. "We have been made holy" the Bible says. That means acceptable to God, "through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all." (Hebrews 10:10)
Now, there are some people who don't like all this talk about blood. But this isn't about gore. It's about love. We just don't understand the seriousness of our condition with God. We're lifelong rebels against His rule over us. We're under an eternal death penalty that can only be paid by someone dying! If you want to see the horror of all of our lies and our selfishness and our lust and our pride and our sexual sins and all the hurting we've done, just walk up to the Cross of Jesus and look at the mangled form of the Son of God. Listen as He cries out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" That's what our sin looks like. That's what it took to pay for my sin. It took the blood of the Son of God.
If you're depending on anything else, no matter how spiritual or how religious to get you to God, you're not going to make it. God provided this way for you to be forgiven, for you to live forever. The question is, have you ever been to Jesus' cross in your heart and put all your trust in the One who died there in your place? There's no reason you have to pay for your sin. Not when Jesus, in His love, already paid it for you as your substitute. The Bible says, "He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world"...and yours.
Have you ever put your total trust in Jesus to be your Savior, your Rescuer, your Forgiver? If not, why not begin your relationship with Him today? Just say, "Jesus, I've been running my own life. I resign. I know there's a death penalty for hijacking my life from you. But I believe you loved me so much you died my death penalty when you died on that cross. You took my hell, and I know it took your blood being shed for me to be right with God. And today, I'm abandoning all trust in everything else and putting all my trust in You to be my personal Savior from my personal sin.
I'd love to help you make that commitment to Christ and understand it better. That's why our website's there. I would encourage you to go there as soon as you can. Go to ANewStory.com.
For you to have a relationship with your creator, for you to ever go to heaven, there's blood needed – the blood of Jesus Christ covering the sin of your life. Without the blood, we die. But life is within your reach right now, right where you are.