Max Lucado Daily: DO-IT-YOURSELF CHRISTIANITY
Do-it-yourself Christianity isn’t much encouragement to the done in and worn out! “Try a little harder” is little encouragement for the abused. At some point we need more than good advice; we need help. Somewhere on this journey we realize that a fifty-fifty proposition is too little. We need help from the inside out. The kind of help Jesus promised.
“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it does not see him or know him. But know him, because he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).
Note the dwelling place of God…in you. Not near us or above us, but in us! In the hidden recesses of our being dwells, not an angel, not a philosophy, not a genie, but God. Imagine that!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Ezra 9
Ezra Prays: “Look at Us . . . Guilty Before You”
1-2 After all this was done, the leaders came to me and said, “The People of Israel, priests and Levites included, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring people around here with all their vulgar obscenities—Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, Amorites. They have given some of their daughters in marriage to them and have taken some of their daughters for marriage to their sons. The holy seed is now all mixed in with these other peoples. And our leaders have led the way in this betrayal.”
3 When I heard all this, I ripped my clothes and my cape; I pulled hair from my head and out of my beard; I slumped to the ground, appalled.
4-6 Many were in fear and trembling because of what God was saying about the betrayal by the exiles. They gathered around me as I sat there in despair, waiting for the evening sacrifice. At the evening sacrifice I picked myself up from my utter devastation, and in my ripped clothes and cape fell to my knees and stretched out my hands to God, my God. And I prayed:
6-7 “My dear God, I’m so totally ashamed, I can’t bear to face you. O my God—our iniquities are piled up so high that we can’t see out; our guilt touches the skies. We’ve been stuck in a muck of guilt since the time of our ancestors until right now; we and our kings and priests, because of our sins, have been turned over to foreign kings, to killing, to captivity, to looting, and to public shame—just as you see us now.
8-9 “Now for a brief time God, our God, has allowed us, this battered band, to get a firm foothold in his holy place so that our God may brighten our eyes and lighten our burdens as we serve out this hard sentence. We were slaves; yet even as slaves, our God didn’t abandon us. He has put us in the good graces of the kings of Persia and given us the heart to build The Temple of our God, restore its ruins, and construct a defensive wall in Judah and Jerusalem.
10-12 “And now, our God, after all this what can we say for ourselves? For we have thrown your commands to the wind, the commands you gave us through your servants the prophets. They told us, ‘The land you’re taking over is a polluted land, polluted with the obscene vulgarities of the people who live there; they’ve filled it with their moral rot from one end to the other. Whatever you do, don’t give your daughters in marriage to their sons nor marry your sons to their daughters. Don’t cultivate their good opinion; don’t make over them and get them to like you so you can make a lot of money and build up a tidy estate to hand down to your children.’
13-15 “And now this, on top of all we’ve already suffered because of our evil ways and accumulated guilt, even though you, dear God, punished us far less than we deserved and even went ahead and gave us this present escape. Yet here we are, at it again, breaking your commandments by intermarrying with the people who practice all these obscenities! Are you angry to the point of wiping us out completely, without even a few stragglers, with no way out at all? You are the righteous God of Israel. We are, right now, a small band of escapees. Look at us, openly standing here, guilty before you. No one can last long like this.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Read: Psalm 32:1–11
A David Psalm
Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be—
you get a fresh start,
your slate’s wiped clean.
2 Count yourself lucky—
God holds nothing against you
and you’re holding nothing back from him.
3 When I kept it all inside,
my bones turned to powder,
my words became daylong groans.
4 The pressure never let up;
all the juices of my life dried up.
5 Then I let it all out;
I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.”
Suddenly the pressure was gone—
my guilt dissolved,
my sin disappeared.
6 These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray;
when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts
we’ll be on high ground, untouched.
7 God’s my island hideaway,
keeps danger far from the shore,
throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.
8 Let me give you some good advice;
I’m looking you in the eye
and giving it to you straight:
9 “Don’t be ornery like a horse or mule
that needs bit and bridle
to stay on track.”
10 God-defiers are always in trouble;
God-affirmers find themselves loved
every time they turn around.
11 Celebrate God.
Sing together—everyone!
All you honest hearts, raise the roof!
INSIGHT:
A burdened conscience is a heavy weight to carry. Ever since the fall of man in the garden of Eden, our response to sin has been either to blame others (Gen. 3:12–13) or take responsibility for our transgression before God (1 John 1:9). The penitent in today’s psalm acknowledges his transgressions to his Creator and Redeemer and experiences the cleansing of his conscience and with it the lifting of a burdensome load. Clearly this psalm teaches us that we can experience freedom from the bondage of sin through divine forgiveness.
When has guilt and remorse racked your soul? How did God’s forgiveness and cleansing provide freedom? Dennis Fisher
Our Guilt Is Gone
By Xochitl Dixon
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
As a young girl, I invited a friend to browse with me through a gift shop near my home. She shocked me, though, by shoving a handful of colorful crayon-shaped barrettes into my pocket and yanking me out the door of the shop without paying for them. Guilt gnawed at me for a week before I approached my mom—my confession pouring out as quickly as my tears.
Grieved over my bad choice of not resisting my friend, I returned the stolen items, apologized, and vowed never to steal again. The owner told me never to come back. But because my mom forgave me and assured me that I had done my best to make things right, I slept peacefully that night.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
King David also rested in forgiveness through confession (Ps. 32:1–2). He had hidden his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah (2 Sam. 11–12) until his “strength was sapped” (Ps. 32:3–4). But once David refused to “cover up” his wrongs, the Lord erased his guilt (v. 5). God protected him “from trouble” and wrapped him in “songs of deliverance” (v. 7). David rejoiced because the “Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him” (v. 10).
We can’t choose the consequences of our sins or control people’s responses when we confess and seek forgiveness. But the Lord can empower us to enjoy freedom from the bondage of sin and peace through confession, as He confirms that our guilt is gone—forever.
Lord, when we confess our sins and receive Your forgiveness, please help us believe our guilt is completely and forever wiped away.
When God forgives, our guilt is gone.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Prayer—Battle in “The Secret Place”
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. —Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “…pray to your Father who is in the secret place….” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest. Disciples Indeed, 395 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
The Password For Heaven - #7988
I couldn't just sit down and start using your personal computer. If you work in an office, chances are they make sure that they can have access to the company computer that you use. Your computer, my computer, your company's computer – obviously they're all protected from any funny business by something we call a password. I can't get into my computer without typing in my password. Would you like to know what it is? Nope!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Password For Heaven."
Our word for today from the Word of God is important mostly for one group of people-people who want to go to heaven when they die; Isn't that just about all of us? This statement by the God whose heaven it is reveals the only password that will get you in. And the last thing God wants for it to be is a secret. He really wants you to be there with Him forever, but there's only one way possible.
Acts 4:12 – The disciples have just healed a lame man in the name of Jesus. Then, through them, God says, "Salvation is found in no one else." (When you hear that word salvation, think rescue-like first responders going in to save the lives of people trapped in a collapsed building.) "Salvation (rescue) is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." No one else but Jesus. No other name but Jesus-the only way to be saved, to be rescued.
From what? From the eternal death penalty that the Bible says we all have facing us because we've taken the life God gave us and, in essence, we've made ourselves "God" in our life. My Creator was supposed to run this life that He gave me and I ran it instead. The Bible says every one of us has done that. And there's no religion that can possibly pay or remove that death penalty, including the Christian religion. What we need to be saved from is hell itself. Without that, any hope you or I have for heaven is false hope.
But why is there "no one else", "No other name", other than Jesus? Why is He God's password to heaven? In a world that so values tolerance and open-mindedness, isn't it colossal arrogance to say He's the only way to heaven? Well, I didn't say it. The Bible did. Jesus did when He said, "I am the way...no man comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6) It isn't so much about one religion being right and the others wrong. In fact, it's not about religion at all. It's about a spiritual death penalty that can only be paid one way-Somebody's got to die. And that's why Jesus came. In His words, He "came to give His life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). In other words, when Jesus died on the cross, He was dying so you don't have to. And the day He walked out of His grave, He proved He's got the power to turn your death sentence into eternal life.
Only someone with no sin of their own could take your place, and that would have to be the Son of God. No one else could have died for you. No one else even claimed to die for you; which leaves us with the question on which everything rests, "On what are you basing your hope for heaven?" If your password is the good things you've done or your spiritual background or your religion-no chance. Because your only hope is pinning all your hopes on Jesus Christ.
Has there ever been a time when you clearly, consciously, personally told Jesus that you were placing all your trust in Him? The day you do is the day you trade forever the hell you deserve for the heaven you could never deserve. And this could be that day. With your forever at stake and with life so unpredictable, waiting another day just doesn't make sense.
So today would you say, "Jesus, I understand that You and You alone are the password to heaven, the door to Heaven, the One who opened that door by Your death on the cross for me. I am Yours." Please go to our website and there you will find the information you need to nail down once and for all that you actually belong to Jesus Christ and are going to heaven. ANewStory.com.
Your hell cancelled, your heaven guaranteed-today. If you'll enter in through the only name God will accept. That is His son. That is Jesus.
