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.