Max Lucado Daily: STAY THE COURSE OF FORGIVENESS
Vengeance is God’s. He will repay—whether ultimately on the Day of Judgment or intermediately in this life. God can discipline your abusive boss. He can bring your ex to his knees or to her senses. Forgiveness doesn’t diminish justice; it just entrusts it to God. He guarantees the right retribution. The God of justice has the precise prescription.
Forgive your enemies? Ah, that’s where you and I come in. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” Paul wrote, “and do not give the devil an opportunity” (Ephesians 4:26-27). Don’t give the devil territory or ground. Bitterness invites him to occupy a space in your heart, to rent a room. Believe me, he will move in and stink up the place! When it comes to forgiveness, all of us are beginners. Stay the course!
From You’ll Get Through This
Zechariah 10
God’s Work of Rebuilding
Pray to God for rain—it’s time for the spring rain—
to God, the rainmaker,
Spring thunderstorm maker,
maker of grain and barley.
2-3 “Store-bought gods babble gibberish.
Religious experts spout rubbish.
They pontificate hot air.
Their prescriptions are nothing but smoke.
And so the people wander like lost sheep,
poor lost sheep without a shepherd.
I’m furious with the so-called shepherds.
They’re worse than billy goats, and I’ll treat them like goats.”
3-5 God-of-the-Angel-Armies will step in
and take care of his flock, the people of Judah.
He’ll revive their spirits,
make them proud to be on God’s side.
God will use them in his work of rebuilding,
use them as foundations and pillars,
Use them as tools and instruments,
use them to oversee his work.
They’ll be a workforce to be proud of, working as one,
their heads held high, striding through swamps and mud,
Courageous and vigorous because God is with them,
undeterred by the world’s thugs.
6-12 “I’ll put muscle in the people of Judah;
I’ll save the people of Joseph.
I know their pain and will make them good as new.
They’ll get a fresh start, as if nothing had ever happened.
And why? Because I am their very own God,
I’ll do what needs to be done for them.
The people of Ephraim will be famous,
their lives brimming with joy.
Their children will get in on it, too—
oh, let them feel blessed by God!
I’ll whistle and they’ll all come running.
I’ve set them free—oh, how they’ll flourish!
Even though I scattered them to the far corners of earth,
they’ll remember me in the faraway places.
They’ll keep the story alive in their children,
and they will come back.
I’ll bring them back from the Egyptian west
and round them up from the Assyrian east.
I’ll bring them back to sweet Gilead,
back to leafy Lebanon.
Every square foot of land
will be marked by homecoming.
They’ll sail through troubled seas, brush aside brash ocean waves.
Roaring rivers will turn to a trickle.
Gaudy Assyria will be stripped bare,
bully Egypt exposed as a fraud.
But my people—oh, I’ll make them strong, God-strong!
and they’ll live my way.” God says so!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, July 07, 2017
Read: Philippians 3:1–11
To Know Him Personally
And that’s about it, friends. Be glad in God!
I don’t mind repeating what I have written in earlier letters, and I hope you don’t mind hearing it again. Better safe than sorry—so here goes.
2-6 Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they’re interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, I call them. The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ’s praise as we do it. We couldn’t carry this off by our own efforts, and we know it—even though we can list what many might think are impressive credentials. You know my pedigree: a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day; an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin; a strict and devout adherent to God’s law; a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting the church; a meticulous observer of everything set down in God’s law Book.
7-9 The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.
10-11 I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.
INSIGHT:
It can be easy to miss the phenomenal change of perspective Paul states in today’s passage. His claims of righteousness were not empty boasts; he had followed God-given laws meticulously—literally to the letter. For Paul to say that all of that was worthless signifies change at a fundamental level. He changed from outward performance—doing (vv. 4–7)—to knowing Christ and what He had done (v. 8).
For more on knowing Christ read, The Mind of Christ at discoveryseries.org/q0209. J.R. Hudberg
The Ultimate Good
By Karen Wolfe
I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Philippians 3:8
As I was growing up in Jamaica, my parents raised my sister and me to be “good people.” In our home, good meant obeying our parents, telling the truth, being successful in school and work, and going to church . . . at least Easter and Christmas. I imagine this definition of being a good person is familiar to many people, regardless of culture. In fact, the apostle Paul, in Philippians 3, used his culture’s definition of being good to make a greater point.
Paul, being a devout first-century Jew, followed the letter of the moral law in his culture. He was born into the “right” family, had the “right” education, and practiced the “right” religion. He was the real deal in terms of being a good person according to Jewish custom. In verse 4, Paul writes that he could boast in all of his goodness if he wanted to. But, as good as he was, Paul told his readers (and us) that there is something more than being good. He knew that being good, while good, was not the same as pleasing God.
God, help me remember that knowing Jesus is the way to ultimate goodness.
Pleasing God, Paul writes in verses 7–8, involves knowing Jesus. Paul considered his own goodness as “garbage” when compared to “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus.” We are good—and we please God—when our hope and faith are in Christ alone, not in our goodness.
Dear God, as I seek to live a good life, help me remember that knowing Jesus is the way to ultimate goodness.
Our Daily Bread welcomes writer Karen Wolfe! Meet Karen and all our authors at odb.org/all-authors.
We are good—and we please God—when our hope and faith are in Christ alone, not in our goodness.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, July 07, 2017
All Efforts of Worth and Excellence Are Difficult
Enter by the narrow gate….Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life…. —Matthew 7:13-14
If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all efforts of worth and excellence are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but its difficulty does not make us faint and cave in— it stirs us up to overcome. Do we appreciate the miraculous salvation of Jesus Christ enough to be our utmost for His highest— our best for His glory?
God saves people by His sovereign grace through the atonement of Jesus, and “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). But we have to “work out” that salvation in our everyday, practical living (Philippians 2:12). If we will only start on the basis of His redemption to do what He commands, then we will find that we can do it. If we fail, it is because we have not yet put into practice what God has placed within us. But a crisis will reveal whether or not we have been putting it into practice. If we will obey the Spirit of God and practice in our physical life what God has placed within us by His Spirit, then when a crisis does come we will find that our own nature, as well as the grace of God, will stand by us.
Thank God that He does give us difficult things to do! His salvation is a joyous thing, but it is also something that requires bravery, courage, and holiness. It tests us for all we are worth. Jesus is “bringing many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10), and God will not shield us from the requirements of sonship. God’s grace produces men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not pampered, spoiled weaklings. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the worthy and excellent life of a disciple of Jesus in the realities of life. And it is always necessary for us to make an effort to live a life of worth and excellence.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Civilization is based on principles which imply that the passing moment is permanent. The only permanent thing is God, and if I put anything else as permanent, I become atheistic. I must build only on God (John 14:6). The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, July 07, 2017
The Most Important Arrangements You Will Ever Make - #7955
When you're little, your parents seem immortal. They're not. Sooner or later, most of us get the kind of call that I got, and maybe you've gotten – a parent is gone. In my case, the hospital called to say my Mom had been admitted due to a medical emergency, but her body gave out and she was gone. No matter what the circumstances, the death of someone you love is always a shock, even if you knew maybe it was coming. When you're the only living child and your other parent is already gone, there's this numbing list of arrangements that you suddenly have to make. Thankfully, that wasn't the case with my Mom. Mercifully, funeral arrangements had been made and paid for years in advance.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Important Arrangements You Will Ever Make".
It was a real blessing to have funeral arrangements made in advance, believe me. But my mother had made much more important pre-arrangements for the day she died, and those arrangements were the greatest blessing of all. Years ago, my Mom had made a choice that guaranteed she would be in heaven for all eternity. These are the most important arrangements you will ever make – or fail to make.
God knows we're so busy living that we don't give much thought to dying. In fact, we generally try to avoid thinking about death as much as possible. Until we're looking in the casket at someone we've just lost. It's hard to look face-to-face at death like that and not think, "Where will I be when it's me there?" This isn't about being morbid. It's about being ready. If I know I'm prepared for something that's coming up, I don't have to keep thinking about it. It's settled. There's nothing more critical for you to settle than your eternal destination. Avoiding those arrangements carries a price too high to pay.
That's why the Bible says in Amos 4, verses 12 and 13, our word for today from the Word of God, "Prepare to meet your God...He who forms the mountains, creates the wind...and treads the high places of the earth – the Lord God Almighty is His name." It is this awesome God who will decide when you and I will take our last breath; when eternity will begin for each and every one of us. The Bible says that you and I actually have an appointment with our Creator – the time when the old-timers used to say you "meet your Maker." God's Book says, "Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment" (Hebrews 9:27) A divine appointment, the nearness of which we cannot know, and judgment for every wrong thing we have ever done.
When you face God, it's too late then to make your arrangements. That's got to be done here and now. So many people think they'll get to heaven by being good. They're wrong – they're eternally wrong. The Bible clearly explains: "It is by grace (that's undeserved love) that you have been saved, through faith – and this...is the gift of God – not by works" (Ephesians 2:8-9). All our good can't possibly cancel our sin because sin has this eternal death penalty, and a death penalty cannot be paid by somebody doing good. Somebody's got to die, and someone did. Jesus did – so you don't have to. Your only hope is grabbing Him like a drowning person would grab a rescuer.
If you've never done that, you are not (in the Bible's words) "prepared to meet your God." But you can be beginning today. You can actually know from this moment on that you are going to heaven when you die, because the sin that would keep you out of heaven has been forever forgiven by the One who died for that sin. Your spiritual rescue begins the moment you say, "Jesus, I'm putting my total trust in You and what You did on the cross for me. I'm Yours."
Our website is basically there to help you be sure you belong to Jesus. And we give you there in simple terms the information from God's Word that can help you make this the day. I invite you to go right away today to ANewStory.com.
There is no greater peace, there's no greater security, than to know your arrangements for eternity have all been made. This very day you can prepare to meet your God.