Max Lucado Daily: FREE TO BE HONEST
My high school baseball coach had a firm rule against chewing tobacco and he wanted to draw it to our attention. He got our attention all right. Before long we’d all tried it! It was a sure test of manhood. One day I’d just popped a plug in my mouth when one of the players warned, “Here comes the coach!” I did what comes naturally…I swallowed.
I added new meaning to the scripture, “I felt weak deep inside me. I moaned all day long. . .” (Psalm 32:3). I paid the price for hiding my disobedience. My body was not made to ingest tobacco. Your soul was not made to ingest sin. Are you keeping any secrets from God…any part of your past or present? Once you’re in the grip of grace, you’re free to be honest! You’ll be glad you did!
From In the Grip of Grace
Psalm 107
Oh, thank God—he’s so good!
His love never runs out.
All of you set free by God, tell the world!
Tell how he freed you from oppression,
Then rounded you up from all over the place,
from the four winds, from the seven seas.
4-9 Some of you wandered for years in the desert,
looking but not finding a good place to live,
Half-starved and parched with thirst,
staggering and stumbling, on the brink of exhaustion.
Then, in your desperate condition, you called out to God.
He got you out in the nick of time;
He put your feet on a wonderful road
that took you straight to a good place to live.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.
He poured great draughts of water down parched throats;
the starved and hungry got plenty to eat.
10-16 Some of you were locked in a dark cell,
cruelly confined behind bars,
Punished for defying God’s Word,
for turning your back on the High God’s counsel—
A hard sentence, and your hearts so heavy,
and not a soul in sight to help.
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
he got you out in the nick of time.
He led you out of your dark, dark cell,
broke open the jail and led you out.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
for his miracle mercy to the children he loves;
He shattered the heavy jailhouse doors,
he snapped the prison bars like matchsticks!
17-22 Some of you were sick because you’d lived a bad life,
your bodies feeling the effects of your sin;
You couldn’t stand the sight of food,
so miserable you thought you’d be better off dead.
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
he got you out in the nick of time.
He spoke the word that healed you,
that pulled you back from the brink of death.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
for his miracle mercy to the children he loves;
Offer thanksgiving sacrifices,
tell the world what he’s done—sing it out!
23-32 Some of you set sail in big ships;
you put to sea to do business in faraway ports.
Out at sea you saw God in action,
saw his breathtaking ways with the ocean:
With a word he called up the wind—
an ocean storm, towering waves!
You shot high in the sky, then the bottom dropped out;
your hearts were stuck in your throats.
You were spun like a top, you reeled like a drunk,
you didn’t know which end was up.
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
he got you out in the nick of time.
He quieted the wind down to a whisper,
put a muzzle on all the big waves.
And you were so glad when the storm died down,
and he led you safely back to harbor.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.
Lift high your praises when the people assemble,
shout Hallelujah when the elders meet!
33-41 God turned rivers into wasteland,
springs of water into sunbaked mud;
Luscious orchards became alkali flats
because of the evil of the people who lived there.
Then he changed wasteland into fresh pools of water,
arid earth into springs of water,
Brought in the hungry and settled them there;
they moved in—what a great place to live!
They sowed the fields, they planted vineyards,
they reaped a bountiful harvest.
He blessed them and they prospered greatly;
their herds of cattle never decreased.
But abuse and evil and trouble declined
as he heaped scorn on princes and sent them away.
He gave the poor a safe place to live,
treated their clans like well-cared-for sheep.
42-43 Good people see this and are glad;
bad people are speechless, stopped in their tracks.
If you are really wise, you’ll think this over—
it’s time you appreciated God’s deep love.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, August 01, 2017
Read: 2 Corinthians 4:7–18
If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!
13-15 We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life. Just like the psalmist who wrote, “I believed it, so I said it,” we say what we believe. And what we believe is that the One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly raise us up with you, alive. Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise!
16-18 So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.
INSIGHT:
Paul declared, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness” (2 Cor. 11:30) because he had found strength through reliance upon God. While lamenting his “thorn in [the] flesh” (12:6–9), Paul affirmed, “I delight in weaknesses . . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong” (v. 10).
What areas of brokenness in your life can become pathways for Christ’s strength? Bill Crowder
Nozomi Hope
By Elisa Morgan
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7
In 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake and a resulting tsunami took nearly 19,000 lives and destroyed 230,000 homes in the region northeast of Tokyo. In its aftermath, The Nozomi Project, named for the Japanese word for “hope,” was born to provide sustainable income, community, dignity, and hope in a God who provides.
Nozomi women sift through the rubble of homes and furnishings to discover broken china shards that they sand and insert into fittings to form jewelry. The jewelry is sold around the world, providing a livelihood for the women while sharing symbols of their faith in Christ.
Dear God, please show Your power as I share the treasure of Your gospel in my broken, but beautiful life.
In New Testament times, it was customary to hide valuables in the unlikely vessels of simple clay pots. Paul describes how the treasure of the gospel is contained in the human frailty of followers of Christ: jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:7). He suggests that the meager—and even at times broken—vessels of our lives actually can reveal God’s power in contrast to our imperfections.
When God inhabits the imperfect and broken pieces in our lives, the healing hope of His power is often more visible to others. Yes, His repair work in our hearts often leaves the scars of cracks. But perhaps those lines from our learning are the etchings in our beings that make His character more visible to others.
Dear God, please show others Your power as I share the treasure of Your gospel in my broken, but beautiful life.
Welcome to Elisa Morgan! Meet all our authors at odb.org/all-authors.
Brokenness can lead to wholeness.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, August 01, 2017
Learning About His Ways
When Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples…He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. —Matthew 11:1
He comes where He commands us to leave. If you stayed home when God told you to go because you were so concerned about your own people there, then you actually robbed them of the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all the consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach, but as long as you were disobedient, you blocked His way. Watch where you begin to debate with Him and put what you call your duty into competition with His commands. If you say, “I know that He told me to go, but my duty is here,” it simply means that you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.
He teaches where He instructs us not to teach. “Master…let us make three tabernacles…” (Luke 9:33).
Are we playing the part of an amateur providence, trying to play God’s role in the lives of others? Are we so noisy in our instruction of other people that God cannot get near them? We must learn to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us regarding His Son, and He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration. When we become certain that God is going to work in a particular way, He will never work in that way again.
He works where He sends us to wait. “…tarry…until…” (Luke 24:49). “Wait on the Lord” and He will work (Psalm 37:34). But don’t wait sulking spiritually and feeling sorry for yourself, just because you can’t see one inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual fits of emotion to “wait patiently for Him”? (Psalm 37:7). Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.
These are some of the facets of His ways that we rarely recognize.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, August 01, 2017
His Hand And Yours - #7972
Spring was planting time on the little farm my wife, Karen, grew up on. And in her early years, that was no small job. Her Granddad actually would hitch up Betsy and Jack-who I thought might have been her cousins but actually Betsy and Jack are mules-and they would start plowing that hard, Ozark ground. Karen would follow behind in her bare feet as Granddad and his team turned up that dirt, broke up those big dirt clods, and smoothed out that broken soil. Then came the seeding…and then the waiting. At that point, it was pretty much up to God-the weather, the warmth, the moisture, and the sunlight. Then, when the corn finally matured, Granddad swung into action again with the big work of harvesting what God had grown. It was really a neat balance of what a man could do and what only God could do.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "His Hand And Yours".
One of the spiritual giants of the first century church at Colosse was a man named Epaphras. Some Bible scholars think he was the man who actually started the church that Paul wrote to in his letter to the Colossians. At the time Paul wrote, Epaphras was traveling with Paul. And like a good spiritual farmer, he understood that wonderful balance between God's work and man's work.
Our word for today from the Word of God begins in Colossians 4:12 where Paul writes: "Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you." Now there's a man who practiced the dynamic duo, praying hard-working hard.
When Paul says Epaphras was "wrestling in prayer", he's actually using the Greek word "agonizomai", the word from which we get "agonize". When this man prayed for the people he loved, it wasn't just a little casual, "Dear God, please bless them and help them." No, he was like a wrestler, using everything he had to win the battle for these people, praying with total intensity and passion-agonizing in prayer for them. He was seeking God for things only God could do in their lives-like empowering them to live right, to choose God's will, to grow up. Like Granddad Glenn back there in the Ozarks, he was totally trusting God for the crop to come up.
But he also believed in working hard for those people. Again, like Karen's granddad farmer, he knew there were some things he was supposed to do in the process. And Paul said he was working very hard on the part that was his. Now in the spiritual farming you're doing-raising your family, doing your ministry, or developing people, it's important that you do both-praying very hard for what only God can do. Working very hard on what He wants you to do.
Many of us tend to naturally gravitate to one or the other of those, and then neglect the other one. We work hard, but we don't pray enough. Or we pray hard, but we don't work enough. Granddad couldn't make that crop come up-he totally trusted God for that. But God didn't turn up the ground, God didn't plant the seed. He didn't bring the crop in. He expected the farmer to do that. Many of the great miracles of the Bible are like that: the wedding servants get the water pots and pour the water, but only Jesus can turn the water into wine. The disciples find lunch and get the people ready for a picnic, but only Jesus can make it enough for everybody - always that beautiful balance of God's hand and your hand.
And what part is God expecting you to do? Well, ask Him. Don't just run around, doing things just to try to make things happen. Don't decide what you're supposed to do based on the situation or the crisis or even conventional wisdom. Ask God to lead you into efforts He wants you to do. It won't be your efforts that will bring the result-it will be God's efforts. But strangely, it might not happen if you don't do what He wants you to do.
So, pray very hard. Work very hard. That's the blueprint for a wonderful harvest. In the words of the first foreign missionary in modern times, William Carey, "Pray as if it all depends on God. Work as if it all depends on you."